Two researchers at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University have received nearly $9 million in grants to develop a preventative vaccine against cancer.

Stephen Albert Johnston, director of the institute's Center for Innovations in Medicine, received a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the Department of Defense's Innovator Award to develop the vaccine for breast cancer.

Johnston's colleague Douglas Lake received $1.2 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation to take the basic technology and determine whether it can be applied to several other forms of cancer.

Together, the grants mark the first major federal and private awards for such an approach to cancer research.

"Breast cancer's course is often long and devastating and, despite advances in diagnosis and treatment, one in five women still succumb to the disease," Johnston said. "It's time to fundamentally rethink how we approach this problem."

Johnston and Lake will lead an interdisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians from other institutions, including Laurence Miller, director for research at Mayo Clinic, and Richard Smith, chief scientist at Pacific Northwest National Labs.

The research for the project will take place at the Biodesign Institute's Center for Innovations in Medicine and Mayo Clinic's new Collaborative Research Building.

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For more information:

ASU news release, 07/09/2007