UAMS Receives $5.8M to Study Cancer Treatment Side Effects

(Right to left) Marjan Boerma, Dr. Amanda Stolarz and Ping-Ching Hsu are advancing research at UAMS to reduce side effects from cancer treatments with support from a new $5.8 million NIH grant. (Provided)

UAMS has received a five-year nearly $5.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue research into the side effects of cancer therapies, including radiation and chemotherapy.

The $5,737,500 grant will fund Phase 3 of the UAMS Center for Studies of Host Response to Cancer Therapy, a Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) initiative, bringing the total federal investment in the center to more than $27 million since it was established in 2015.

Led by Marjan Boerma, associate director of basic science at the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute and the J. Thomas May Distinguished Endowed Chair in Oncology at UAMS, the center is the first COBRE research center dedicated exclusively to studying the side effects of cancer treatment.

“Most cancer patients experience side effects from their treatment, sometimes mild, sometimes severe,” Boerma said in a press release. “If we can predict who will develop those side effects, or develop strategies to reduce them, we can make therapies safer, increase patients’ quality of life and even allow doctors to safely deliver higher doses when needed.”

Over the course of the first two phases, the center has supported 12 research project leaders and 14 pilot studies, helping early and mid-career faculty launch innovative studies and advance their research careers.

One research example is a collaboration between Dr. Amanda Stolarz, assistant professor in the UAMS College of Pharmacy, and Ping-Ching Hsu, associate professor in the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health.

Stolarz studies chemotherapy and lymphedema, while Hsu focuses on cardiac side effects of chemotherapy. Through the center, they work together to examine both lymphedema and cardiac side effects, combining preclinical models and real-world data from Arkansas cancer patients.

“By combining our expertise, we can better understand how cancer treatments affect patients’ hearts and lymphatic systems at the same time,” Stolarz said in the release. “That’s important because these side effects don’t happen in isolation.”

Boerma said in the release that she is eager to expand the center’s research into new areas, including immunotherapy, which can cause significant, but poorly understood, side effects.