Congressman Cohen Announces $1.1 Million in NIH Research Grants to St. Jude

MEMPHIS - Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) today announced four more National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, totaling $1,191,875, to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The announcement follows $2.4 million in NIH research grants reported on Monday.

One grant for $76,780, from the National Eye Institute, is for vision research under the direction of Dr. Mellisa Clemons. A second, for $508,750, is from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for research on epigenetic gene regulation for stem cell fates under the direction of Dr. Jamy C. Peng. Dr. Peng's research seeks to better understand the genetic and molecular triggers underlying how a stem cell can become any other type of cell, specifically during when an embryo is forming. This research will further our understanding of human development, and how things can go right, or wrong. The third, for $465,506, from the National Cancer Institute, is for research on epigenetic reprogramming of T cell exhaustion to enhance tumor immunotherapy under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Alan Youngblood. Epigenetics are the changes in gene expression - genes creating proteins - that do not occur as a direct result of changes to the DNA sequence, but are rather the patterns of expression. Dr. Youngblood's work will help us to better understand the factors affecting the efficacy of a type of T cells in certain tumor environments. This work helps pave the way for increasingly targeted, tailored types of immunotherapies. And the fourth, for $140,839, is from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for research into comparative vertebrate neural crest contributions to the hematopoietic stem cell specification niche under the direction of Dr. Diana Sa da Bandeira. The neural crest are a group of cells during embryonic development, which became a large number of different cell types including neurons, the immune cells of the sensory, sympathetic and parasympathetic immune system, epinephrine-producing cells of the adrenal gland, and more. The grant to Dr. Diana Sa da Bandeira will support her transition from the post-doctoral fellow level to becoming a faculty member.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

"St. Jude works at the cutting edge of medical research as these complex project descriptions demonstrate. I am pleased to see the substantial federal funding our premier children's research hospital is receiving and am confident it will lead to important breakthroughs that enhance and save lives."

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