The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded an Exploratory Developmental grant to fund 3D gene imaging research at Yale Cancer Center (YCC). The 3-year, $1.2 million R33 award will help support research on multiplexed imaging of chromatin folding and RNA profiles in cancer and lead to new biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. The NIH R33 funding provides a second phase for the support for innovative exploratory and development research activities.
“This funding will make a significant impact as it will help open up new opportunities to study the 3D genome in cancer, including the clonal diversity of chromatin architectures in cancer and gene expression regulation mechanisms by 3D chromatin organization,” said Mandar Muzumdar, MD, Assistant Professor of Genetics and Medicine (Medical Oncology) at YCC, researcher at the Yale Cancer Biology Institute and Co-Principal Investigator. “We hope to apply these technologies in future clinical trials to validate their utility in human cancer biospecimens.”
“Our plan is to help better define cancer cell states, and in turn lead to the discovery of new prognostic and predictive biomarkers.” added Siyuan (Steven) Wang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Genetics and Cell Biology at YCC and Co-Principal Investigator. “The research may also offer new avenues for chromatin-targeted approaches for cancer prevention and therapy.”