Cancer research at Kansas State University receives a boost from the university’s Johnson Cancer Research Center through the help of private donors.

With the funds that are raised through private donations, the cancer research center provides Kansas State University faculty and students hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in competitive awards to support innovative cancer research, equipment purchases, and  mentoring of student researchers amongst other things.

“We are grateful to our many allies helping us conquer cancer, and pleased to redistribute their gifts to our most promising faculty and student researchers,” said Rob Denell, Johnson Cancer Research Center director and University distinguished professor of biology.

In the 2016 fiscal year, the cancer research center’s awards totaled $742,145; the Innovative Research Award program, the center’s largest, provided $496,788 to faculty for studies into things such as anti-cancer properties of flavonoids, toxicity of a leukemia drug, self-management of ovarian cancer using a smartphone-based 3-D chip, and characterization of the Kibra tumor suppressor protein.

Kansas State University’s Johnson Cancer Research Center currently has 100 affiliated faculty researches conducting multidisciplinary cancer research in 18 departments of five colleges.