UAMS on Monday announced that Samantha Kendrick had been awarded a $760,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to study an aggressive type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma common among military veterans.
The three-year study focuses on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), a blood cancer that affects white blood cells that produce antibodies to fight infections, UAMS said in a news release. Second only to melanoma, DLBCL is the fastest growing cancer in the world and accounts for 30% of cancer cases worldwide. More than 18,000 people are diagnosed with DLBCL each year.
UAMS said the study aims to identify proteins that interact with a unique DNA structure called the G-quadruplex (G4) that forms within a regulatory region of a key B-cell receptor gene.
“This grant will allow us to understand the underlying biology of one of the most common B-cell cancers and what is really driving some of the aggressive tumors that are unresponsive to current therapy,” said Kendrick, whose husband is a veteran and lymphoma survivor.
Lymphoma is one of many cancers that can be connected to a veteran’s military service. Nearly 13,000 veterans with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma received VA disability compensation in 2021, according to the release. Lymphoma is often linked to exposure to toxic substances.
Kendrick joined UAMS in 2017. She has been studying lymphoma for more than a decade, beginning as a doctoral student at the University of Arizona.
“Lymphomas are not single diseases but consist of multiple subsets that will require personalized medicine for some patients to survive,” she said. “It’s very exciting to be part of this foundational research to better understand how these tumors develop.”
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