Ohio State University researchers awarded NCI grant to further study thyroid cancer

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a five-year, $11.3 million grant to a team of researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James) to further their studies on thyroid cancer.

Principal investigator Matthew D. Ringel, MD, professor of medicine and a member of the OSUCCC - James Molecular Biology and Cancer Genetics (MBCG) Program, leads the NCI Program Project Grant (CA124570). The new grant is a continuation of a study that ran from 2008 through 2013 entitled "Genetic and Signaling Pathways in Epithelial Thyroid Cancer."

The study has four integrated projects:

• "Genes in the Predisposition to Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma," led by Albert de la Chapelle, MD, PhD, co-leader of the OSUCCC - James MBCG Program;
• "Genetic Alterations That Initiate Follicular Thyroid Carcinogenesis," led by Charis Eng, MD, PhD, at the Cleveland Clinic, and co-led by Lawrence Kirschner, MD, PhD, of the OSUCCC-James MBCG Program;
• "Selective Modulation of Thyroidal Radioiodine Accumulation," led by Sissy Jhiang, PhD, of the OSUCCC - James MBCG Program;
• "P21-Activated Kinase in Thyroid Cancer" led by Ringel, a member of the OSUCCC-James MBCG Program and director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Ohio State.

In addition, the Program Project Grant funds three shared-resource cores:

• "Integrated Clinical Information and Pathology Sample Repository," led by John Phay, MD, of Ohio State's Division of Surgical Oncology, and by Rebecca Nagy, CGC, of Ohio State's Division of Human Genetics;
• "Mouse Imaging and Pathology," led by Kirschner;
• "Biostatistics and Data Integration," led by Soledad Fernandez, PhD, of Ohio State's Department of Biomedical Informatics.