UAMS Researcher Awarded $3.2M to Study Cancer Treatments

UAMS researcher Hong-yu Li

UAMS announced that Hong-yu Li, a researcher at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, has been awarded a $3.2 million federal grant to advance therapeutic treatments for certain types of cancer.

Li’s research focuses on treatment involving cancer of the brain, breast, stomach and intestines, head and neck, and skin, UAMS said in a news release. It also applies to leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

The grant comes from the National Cancer Institute. It will support Li’s efforts to design and synthesize small molecules through a variety of novel approaches and develop new agents for cancer treatments.

Specifically, Li’s work targets a protein dedicated to controlling cell development. Targeting that protein, known as the E3 ligase, helps provide more strategies for cancer treatment. Li said the protein has a “broad implication” in cancer, especially for advanced human metastatic cancer.

Li is the Helen Adams and Arkansas Research Alliance Endowed Chair in Drug Discovery and a professor in the UAMS College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

He leads the Cancer Therapeutics Research Program at the Cancer Institute.