FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                               

For more information, contact:

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Sheila Champlin – (901) 448-4957, schampli@uthsc.edu

 

Professor Gabor Tigyi of

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

 Receives $1.4 Million Grant to Continue Cancer Research

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Memphis, Tenn. (May 14, 2012) – Gabor Tigyi, MD, PhD, Harriet S. Van Vleet Chair in Oncology Research, professor and chair in the Department of Physiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), has received a grant totaling $1,497,646 from the National Cancer Institute, a subsidiary of the National Institutes of Health.  The award will fund Dr. Tigyi’s ongoing cancer research.  The study titled, “Anticancer Strategies Targeting the Autotaxin-LPA Receptor Axis,” will be conducted over a five-year period.

            The research undertaken by Dr. Tigyi and his team is focused on developing a new class of drugs that controls the spread of cancers by inhibiting autotaxin, a key enzyme involved in metastasis.  This current project grew out of a decade-long collaboration between Dr. Tigyi’s laboratory in the Department of Physiology, UTHSC College of Medicine, and the laboratories of Duane D. Miller, PhD, chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, UTHSC College of Pharmacy, and Abby L. Parrill, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry at The University of Memphis.

With this five-year renewal of the grant, this project has been successfully funded for 15 years.  One outcome of this effort has been the promising drug candidate Rx100, which is a potent inhibitor of radiation injury.  According to a news release by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “preliminary data suggests that Rx100 can protect or mitigate injury and improve survival if administered up to 72 hours after deadly whole-body radiation exposure.”

UTHSC has licensed Rx100 to RxBio, Inc.  The compound Rx100 has itself received funding from the Department of Defense and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in excess of $25 million for development for use in the mitigation of gastrointestinal acute radiation syndrome.  As a result, Rx100 entered the FDA's regulatory pipeline.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases.  For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

As the flagship statewide academic health system, the mission of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) is to bring the benefits of the health sciences to the achievement and maintenance of human health, with a focus on the citizens of Tennessee and the region, by pursuing an integrated program of education, research, clinical care, and public service.  In 2011, UT Health Science Center celebrated its centennial: 100 years advancing the future of health care.  Offering a broad range of postgraduate training opportunities, the main UTHSC campus is located in Memphis and includes six colleges: Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy.  The UTHSC campus in Knoxville includes a College of Medicine, College of Pharmacy, and an Allied Health Sciences unit.  In addition, the UTHSC Chattanooga campus includes a College of Medicine and an Allied Health Sciences unit.  Since its founding in 1911, UTHSC has educated and trained more than 53,000 health care professionals on campuses and in health care facilities across the state.  For more information, visit www.uthsc.edu.

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