The Arkansas Research Alliance announced Wednesday a $764,000 contract with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine if new approaches can be developed to screen for lung cancer with a blood test.
Dr. Donald Johann, associate professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at the UAMS Department of Hematology and Oncology, is the principle investigator and said the goal of the initiative is to develop tools and methods for the early detection of cancer.
The project seeks to advance scientific and computational approaches to understand intricacies of human gene sequences, especially mutations involving certain lung cancers.
The alliance said the program is consistent with government calls for more focus on “precision medicine.”
“As the state’s only academic medical center, UAMS is committed to improving the health of Arkansans,” UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn said in a news release. “This award represents a tremendous opportunity for UAMS to contribute in the rapidly evolving field of cancer-based precision medicine.”
The project’s genomics-based approach will result in large and complex data sets that require bioinformatics to understand. That part of work involves collaboration among Arkansas’ five research universities: UAMS, the University of Arkansas, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Arkansas State University, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in conjunction with the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) in Jefferson County.
Additionally, the project will encompass the study of DNA from smokers, non-smokers and those with compromised immune systems in order to understand the differences among those groups.
According to a 2012 study from the Centers for Disease Control, Arkansas had the third highest lung cancer death rate in the U.S. behind only Kentucky and West Virginia.
The new FDA contract is a result of a continuing partnership between ARA and FDA in which the two entities collaborate to conduct research in important areas of study such as nanotechnology and bioinformatics to improve public health outcomes.
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