On Aug. 21, 2024, the governing body of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) approved $60.6 million in grants to advance the state’s fight against cancer. The grants fund a wide array of academic research projects, including CPRIT Scholar recruitment awards, innovative core facilities, and developmental research focusing on promising new insights into the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of cancer. 

“The grants approved today show the impact CPRIT is having across the board in cancer research,” said CPRIT CEO Kristen Doyle. “By supporting the vital core facilities that researchers need, funding groundbreaking research and deepening the bench of clinical trial investigators, CPRIT is fulfilling the promise central to our mission:  we are helping Texans conquer cancer.”

Nine of the grants approved today provide funding for critical research hubs across Texas called core facilities. Core facilities offer coordinated technologies, services, and expertise for cancer researchers.  

A Core Facility Support awards approved today establishes the first Advanced Spatial Genomics (ASG) core facility at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.  

Until recently, most genomic technologies such as DNA and RNA sequencing required scientists to grind up tumor tissues to extract molecules for analysis. This process means losing the complex composition of the different cell types and their spatial arrangement within the tumor, which makes it difficult to understand the complex environment of cancer cells.  Spatial genomics is an exciting new field that allows cancer researchers to directly connect the images of cells and their tissue structures with genomic data while preserving the spatial context. This provides the researchers with the ability to see exactly where distinct types of cells are located within a tumor and determine the genes and proteins they are expressing.  This breakthrough gives researchers the opportunity to create a three-dimensional atlas – dubbed the “Google Map of the human body.” 

The ASG will provide comprehensive services and expertise for tissue processing, slide imaging, spatial genomics technologies, and spatial data analysis methods for cancer researchers in the Texas Medical Center area and across Texas. This groundbreaking facility will have a profound impact on cancer research and improving the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients in Texas. 

CPRIT provided funding for eight additional core facilities today, including a High Performance Mass Spectrometry Imaging Core Facility at The University of Texas at Austin and a Pediatric Cancer Data Core at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.