UAMS on Tuesday announced that researcher Amanda Stolarz received a five-year, $1.8 million federal grant for a study investigating possible prevention of a major complication from chemotherapy.
The grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health will help Stolarz explore how doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic drug, directly inhibits contractions of lymph vessels and contributes to a debilitating and often painful accumulation of fluid in the body.
In a news release, UAMS said that Stolarz’s team has identified a potential new therapy that blocks certain proteins to prevent the doxorubicin-related condition.
There are currently no FDA-approved medications to alleviate the condition, known as lymphedema.
“I am beyond excited to receive this award,” Stolarz, the principal investigator, said in the release. “It is a culmination of many years of research and will serve as the foundation to building my own independent research program … We have a great team of scientists working on this project who were instrumental in putting this proposal together, and I look forward to continue working with them.”
The project is an expansion of Stolarz’s postdoctoral work at UAMS.
Co-investigators on the project are:
- Nukhet Aykin-Burns, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the College of Pharmacy
- Andrew Morris, professor of pharmacology and toxicology in the College of Medicine, and holder of the Mehta-Stebbins Chair in Cardiovascular Research
- Reid Landes, professor of biostatistics in the College of Medicine and Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health
- Dr. Theodore Brown, associate professor of pathology in the College of Medicine and the state’s chief medical examiner
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