The University of Nebraska Board of Regents Friday approved UNMC’s proposal to establish the Nebraska Center for Cellular Signaling. Funding for the center comes from a five-year, $9.9 million grant that UNMC received last year.
The grant, which is funded by the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) program – a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported program, will be used to further the understanding of cell signaling – the biochemical response of cells to their environment – in relation to a variety of cancers.
Margaret Wheelock, Ph.D., professor of oral biology, UNMC College of Dentistry, is principal investigator of the grant and will serve as director of the new Nebraska Center for Cellular Signaling.
The center also will expand the cellular signaling research of talented junior researchers to foster new research initiatives that ultimately will improve the health of Nebraskans and people around the world. Research projects will focus on head and neck cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer and cancer in general.
Seven projects will be led by researchers from UNMC, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Creighton University. Each project involves the study of cellular signaling with a focus on its role in producing tumors. Cell signaling is a rapidly growing area of national research due to scientific and technological advances made in the last 10 years.
Project leaders of the center grants are: James Wahl, Ph.D. and Ali Nawshad, D.D.S., Ph.D., UNMC College of Dentistry Department of Oral Biology; Steven Caplan, Ph.D., UNMC College of Medicine Department of Biochemistry; Melanie Simpson, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Biochemistry; Laura Hansen, Ph.D. and Bhakta Dey, Ph.D., Creighton School of Medicine Department of Biomedical Sciences; and Yaping Tu, Creighton School of Medicine Department of Pharmacology.