Cancer research capabilities in the Houston area just got an $8 million boost.

On Wednesday, May 20, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) awarded $8 million in grants to institutions in Houston and Bryan for the creation or expansion of so-called “core” cancer research facilities.

“Core facilities provide shared access to advanced technology, equipment, and scientific expertise that may not be available at every institution,” CPRIT says. “These core facilities are vital to not only cancer research but also to the study of diseases beyond cancer.”

Houston-area recipients of these $2 million grants are:

• A facility at the University of Texas Health Science Center for preclinical support of cancer researchers in Texas to evaluate new safe, effective drugs and drug combinations.
• The Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics, operated by Houston’s Texas Medical Center Foundation. The accelerator helps researchers and startups move innovative cancer treatments from the lab to clinical trials.
• Rice University’s Genetic Design & Engineering Center in Houston. The center enables researchers to collaborate on studies of custom DNA for cancer treatment.
• A facility at the Texas A&M University System’s Health Science Center in Bryan that aims to speed up the development of cancer therapies.

In addition to those grants, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, and Rice University shared $21 million to recruit cancer researchers from other institutions.

The largest of those grants—totalling $4 million—went to M.D. Anderson for the recruitment of renowned cancer researcher Andre Nussenzweig from the National Institutes of Health. His research focuses on how DNA damage and faulty DNA repairs lead to cancer.

Here are the totals for the other CPRIT grants awarded in the Houston area:

• $12.8 million to Houston-based Indapta Therapeutics for the development of an off-the-shelf therapy that naturally kills cancer cells, combined with an immunity-targeting agent for a type of leukemia.
• $11.1 million to MD Anderson, including $5 million for a statewide platform to improve long-term health outcomes in adolescents and young adults who survived cancer.
• $8.4 million to Baylor College of Medicine, including $4.8 million for two training programs for cancer researchers.
• $6.25 million to UT Health Houston, including $4 million for a biomedical informatics and genomics training program for cancer researchers.
• $4.4 million to the Texas A&M Health Science Center’s Houston campus, including $2.4 million for a cancer therapeutics training program.
• $2.75 million to Rice, including $250,000 for a study of ovarian cancer.
• $2 million to Houston-based March Biosciences for the development of a targeted therapy for treating T-cell lymphoma.
• $1.15 million to the University of Houston, including $900,000 for a platform for detection of lung cancer.
• $900,000 to Texas A&M in Bryan to conduct clinical drug trials in rural and underserved communities around the state.
• $800,000 to Houston- and Israel-based Xerient Pharma for the development of an oral form of a cell-protecting drug called amifostine to protect the upper GI tract from radiation damage during pancreatic cancer treatment.
• $659,000 to Missouri City-based OmniNano Pharmaceuticals for the development of a two-drug combination to treat the most common form of pancreatic cancer.
• $250,000 to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for a novel therapeutic to prevent colitis-related colorectal cancer.