Work underway to discover new drugs to fight the disease.
Dr. Ziwei Huang. a cancer researcher and chair of the Department of Pharmacology at Upstate Medical University. The Upstate Cancer Research Institute on the sixth floor of Weiskotten Hall will organize and expand cancer research activities being conducted by scientists and clinicians in many different departments at Upstate. Ziwei Huang, a cancer researcher who joined Upstate last year as chair of its pharmacology department, is the institute’s director.
Huang is working to create a new class of drugs that would make traditional chemotherapy and radiation more effective by shutting off a protein that makes cancer cells resistant to those treatments.
The cancer institute is filling space vacated by a team of about 25 cardiovascular researchers led by Dr. Jose Jalife who left Upstate in 2007 to work at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Upstate decided to fill that void by expanding cancer research. “We already had three very successful cancer researchers in the pharmacology department and cancer drug development is a very important area,” said Dr. Steven Scheinman, Upstate’s senior vice president and medical school dean.
Huang brought more than $2 million in federal National Institutes of Health research funding with him to Upstate. He has recruited three other cancer researchers and is working to attract more, Scheinman said.
Researchers in all disciplines at Upstate brought in about $22 million in NIH money last year. Upstate officials expect the new cancer institute to increase that funding.
Cancer also is a top priority for Upstate University Hospital.
The hospital is awaiting state approval to build a $77.3 million, 90,000-square foot outpatient cancer center that will consolidate radiation oncology, diagnostic imaging and many other services for cancer patients into a single facility.
To celebrate the opening of the institute, Upstate will present a cancer research symposium at 1 p.m. Thursday on the ninth floor of Weiskotten Hall. The symposium, open to the public, will highlight the work of Huang and six other cancer researchers.