Foundation approaches $1 million in grants supporting prostate cancer research

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA – In furtherance of its mission to fund cutting-edge prostate cancer research, the Mike Slive Foundation announced today it is awarding six new research grants to help eradicate prostate cancer. The grants focus on cutting-edge prostate cancer research in a variety of fields. The Mike Slive Foundation has now funded a total of nearly one million dollars to 18 prostate cancer research grants across the country since its inception in 2017.

“In the last four years, the Mike Slive Foundation has continued to grow our funding of prostate cancer research and increase the diversity of funded institutions,” said Anna Slive Harwood, Executive Director of the Mike Slive Foundation. “It was incredibly important to my father, Mike Slive, that we fund innovative, promising research nationwide for this disease, which affects one in nine men. We are thrilled to support these researchers on their quest to find a cure for prostate cancer.”

Guided by a commitment to find a cure for prostate cancer, the Mike Slive Foundation funds pilot grants for innovative research that allows researchers to establish proof-of-concept when applying for larger, highly competitive federal grants. The Foundation’s Medical Advisory Committee uses a peer-review process modeled after the National Institutes of Health to select the grant recipients. This year, the Foundation received 35 applications representing 15 research institutions across the country. The awarded grants are as follows:

Exploiting ferroptosis for the treatment of lethal neuroendocrine prostate cancer
Ming Chen, PhD, Duke University

Overcoming ADT Resistance in Metastatic Castration Resistance Prostate Cancer (mCRPC) By Targeting Monocarboxylate Transporter (MCT) Pathway
Pratip Bhattacharya, PhD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Functions of the CDK8 module in prostate cancer cells
Jun-yuan Ji, PhD, Tulane University School of Medicine, Louisiana Cancer Research Center

Targeting the androgen receptor axis affects macrophage polarization in castrationresistant prostate cancer
Selvarangan Ponnazhagan, PhD, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Validating and tailored targeting of identified immune signature in the tumors of African American Prostate cancer patients
Dennis O. Adeegbe, PhD, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

In addition to funding the five grants described above, the Mike Slive Foundation funded a sixth grant through a partnership with the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB:

CD24-mediated Tumor Metastasis and Targeted Therapy in Prostate Cancer
Runhua Liu, MD, PhD, The University of Alabama at Birmingham