Ohio State Cancer Projects Benefit From Stimulus Funding

January 26, 2010

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Federal stimulus money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) is funding two major construction projects totaling almost $12 million that will benefit The Ohio State University’s cancer program.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded an $8 million grant to complete one of three unfinished floors of The Ohio State University Medical Center’s Biomedical Research Tower, as well as a $3.9 million grant to renovate Goss Lab in the department of Veterinary Biosciences.

Construction of the fourth floor of the Biomedical Research Tower is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2011, with completion by summer 2012. Renovations to Goss Lab are scheduled to start in April 2011, with completion by February 2012. The projects are designed to increase collaboration among cancer researchers.

The grants will benefit several research areas, including The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James).

For Ohio State, the ARRA has provided more than $82 million in one-time funding for 174 projects from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. The website, www.osu.edu/arra, features a sample of funded projects and other information about how stimulus funding is powering research at the university.

The Biomedical Research Tower opened in December 2006 with about 60 faculty scientists and their teams, totaling approximately 500 research staff members, occupying five research floors. Three additional floors will be completed in a second phase of development.

Eventually, the tower will house more than 100 faculty scientists and their teams – a total of 800 researchers – specializing in cancer and cancer genetics, cardiovascular and lung disease and high-field imaging, as well as biology, biotechnology and biomedical informatics programs.

“The stimulus funding for the Biomedical Research Tower is vital to continuing important research in experimental therapeutics of cancer, along with emerging fields such as pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamic studies, and pharmacogenomics for novel targeted molecular therapies,” said principal investigator Dr. Michael Grever, chair of the department of internal medicine at Ohio State and co-leader of the experimental therapeutics program at OSUCCC-James.

The new laboratory facility also will support the medicinal chemists as they design effective new therapies for treating cancer patients. It will enable the recruitment of new faculty in oncology to improve the lives of patients with cancer.

Renovation of more than 8,000 square feet on the second floor of Goss Lab will convert currently unusable space in veterinary biosciences, creating four new laboratories, including a dedicated rodent phenotyping and infectious necropsy laboratory, and the necessary office support space. The renovated facility will permit the consolidation and integration of the laboratories involved in the $10.9 million Program Project Grant (PPG), awarded in 2008 by the National Cancer Institute.

“The renovations are part of a broader plan to improve infrastructure while meeting the future needs of infectious disease research,” said principal investigator Dr. Michael Lairmore, chair and professor in the department of veterinary biosciences and associate director for basic sciences in the OSUCCC-James. “Our goal is to strengthen collaboration among the investigators working in this updated research space.”

The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute is one of only 40 Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States designated by the National Cancer Institute. Ranked by U.S. News & World Report among the top 20 cancer hospitals in the nation, The James (www.jamesline.com) is the 180-bed adult patient-care component of the cancer program at The Ohio State University. The OSUCCC-James is one of only seven funded programs in the country approved by the NCI to conduct both Phase I and Phase II clinical trials.

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