Clemson institute receives breast cancer-research grant

CLEMSON – October 25, 2011 – The Avon Foundation for Women has awarded the Clemson University Institute for Biological Interfaces of Engineering (IBIOE) a second grant for medical research related to breast cancer procedures.

The institute will receive $150,000 from the foundation to support research that improves breast reconstructive surgery using a patient’s cells, with a novel application of drugs to reduce tumor recurrence or metastases.

Clemson was one of seven universities or hospitals to receive grants from the foundation. The recipients were named Sunday in Charlotte following the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Avon Walk Charlotte raised $1.7 million to advance access to care and finding a cure for breast cancer. This is the second time the Avon foundation has awarded a grant to Clemson’s Institute for Biological Interfaces of Engineering. In 2009, the institute received $195,000.

Karen Burg, the institute’s director and Hunter Endowed Chair of Bioengineering, who attended the Charlotte event, said the Avon foundation and walk participants raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for breast cancer research.

The foundation’s grants will help accelerate advances in research and health care.

“The Avon Foundation for Women not only raises awareness of this terrible disease, it also leads the way in funding research programs such as IBIOE’s,” Burg said.

Institute researchers develop engineered tissues that can be used for diagnostic purposes. Three-dimensional tissue systems are built in a laboratory using cells and plastic scaffolds to construct particular aspects of living tissue. Tissue systems are built and “personalized” using cells from an individual leading to vaccines and therapies that are specific to the individual.

The goal is to predict if patients will react positively to a particular therapy by building a tissue system out of their cells and applying the therapy. These three-dimensional tissue models provide additional information for a clinician or a scientist that cannot be gleaned from traditional two-dimensional cell culture systems.

Marc Hurlbert, executive director of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, said grant beneficiaries are changing the course of breast cancer.

“These new grants will literally help them save lives,” he said.