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Stimulus jolts Triangle science

Triangle area researchers won a massive infusion of $145 million in federal stimulus money Wednesday for scientific projects large and small -- including an ambitious effort to seek cancer treatments by unraveling the complex genetics of tumors.

Of the 521 grants awarded to the state, 415 are in the 4th Congressional District, which includes the Triangle. The big winners were UNC-Chapel Hill, with 186 grants worth more than $60 million, and Duke University, with 181 grants totaling more than $75 million.

The stimulus bill enacted this year included $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which opened the financial spigot to projects that might have otherwise taken years to fund.

Stimulus funds to give scientific research a boost in N.C.

Triangle area researchers won a massive infusion of $145 million in federal stimulus money Wednesday for scientific projects large and small including an ambitious effort to seek cancer treatments by unraveling the complex genetics of tumors.

Of the 521 grants awarded to the state, 415 are in the 4th Congressional District, which includes the Triangle. The big winners were UNC-Chapel Hill, with 186 grants worth more than $60 million, and Duke University, with 181 grants totaling more than $75 million.

The stimulus bill enacted this year included $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which opened the financial spigot to projects that might have otherwise taken years to fund.

Lawmakers push for cancer research

North Carolina legislators and UNC-Chapel Hill leaders want to put the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center on a level with household names in the field: Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

The state Senate is backing that ambition with a proposal to pump $50 million annually into the Lineberger center.

The center's director, Dr. Shelley Earp, said he's almost speechless at the proposed level of support.

Cautious cancer grants may stall breakthroughs

Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are especially responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty staying on a diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program that encourages families to choose more healthful foods.

Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.

The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.

A bit of science before the golf

The V Foundation for Cancer Research wants you to know where all its money goes.

So on Saturday morning, as a prelude to today's gala fundraiser -- the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course at N.C. State University's Centennial Campus -- the organization sponsored a cancer research symposium.

The two-hour event, held at the Raleigh Convention Center, trained a spotlight on more than a half dozen Triangle scientists whose research has been funded by the foundation.