NCI's Center for Global Health announces first major research grants to support portable technologies

NCI’s Center for Global Health (CGH) announced grants that will support the development and validation of low-cost, portable technologies. These technologies have the potential to improve early detection, diagnosis, and non-invasive or minimally invasive treatment of several cancer types that have a particularly high prevalence in a number of low- and middle-income countries, noted CGH director Ted Trimble, M.D. The researchers who received grants under the Center’s first major funding program will be incorporated in studies in India (oral cancers), Brazil (cervical cancer), Colombia (cervical neoplasia, or abnormal cell growth), South Africa (HPV and cervical carcinoma), and the Philippines (cervical dysplasia, another form of abnormal cell growth).

As part of this funding program, CGH has also partnered with the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at NIH for one of the grants. The seven grantees are:

•Low-cost enabling technology for image-guided photodynamic therapy of oral leukoplakia: Jonathan Celli and Tayyaba Hasan, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

•High resolution microendoscopy for cervical cancer diagnosis: Kathleen Schmeler, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Rice University, Houston

•Adaptation and testing of the CryoPen cryotherapy device for treating cervical neoplasia for use in low-income settings: Miriam Cremer, Magee-Women’s Research Institute and Foundation, Pittsburgh

•Adapting the Cepheid GeneXpert test to detect HPV: Louise Kuhn, Columbia University, New York

•Low-cost test for hepatitis C virus to identify patients at risk for developing hepatocellular carcinoma: Robert Murphy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

•Assessing the performance, safety, and efficacy of a new cryotherapy device using liquid CO2: Jean Anderson, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

•Low-cost, portable computer-aided detection and diagnostic (CADD) tools for non-invasive screening of breast cancer, Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, Santa Monica, California.

Visit the CGH Spotlight blog for further details.