American Cancer Society awards new $792,000 grant to Yale researcher

The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the United States, has approved funding of a new research grant totaling $792,000 to a researcher at Yale University. The grant is among 109 national research and training grants totaling more than $45 million that will fund investigators at 75 institutions across the United States; 102 are new grants while seven are renewals of previous grants. The grants go into effect July 1.

Ryan B. Jensen, Assistant Professor of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale School of Medicine, will begin work on his project titled, "Elucidating Cancer Risk in Homology-Directed Repair Variants." According to a news release from the cancer society, Jensen's lab is working to understand how failures in DNA repair contribute to both cancer risk and improved treatment strategies. Their focus has been on genes involved in repair of DNA double-strand breaks, such as BRCA2, which when inherited in a mutant form predisposes an individual to high-risk for breast, ovarian, and other epithelial cancers. Understanding how these genes function in DNA repair may pave the way for not only understanding how cancer cells initiate, but may also reveal clues on how to stop tumors from progressing.

“The generous support from the American Cancer Society and its donors will ensure our lab will continue our investigations into DNA repair and will ultimately help to more precisely determine the genetic risk each person has of developing cancer,” Jensen said in the release.

In the coming months, Relay For Life participants across Connecticut and the US will help save lives by raising the necessary dollars to help fund groundbreaking research projects such as Dr. Jensen’s. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, the Society has invested more than $4.5 billion in research since 1946 that has helped with the research and training of health professionals to investigate the causes, prevention, and early detection of cancer, as well as new treatments, cancer survivorship, and end of life support for patients and their families. Currently there are 21 research grants in effect totaling more than $10.3 million in funding at Connecticut institutions.