American Cancer Society awards $660,000 to UCI Cancer Biologist Claudia Benavente
Claudia Benavente, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and developmental & cell biology, was awarded a $660,000 Research Scholar Grant through the American Cancer Society (ACS). Professor Benavente joins an elite company of scientists and health care professionals who have received awards from the ACS to make great contributions to the fight against cancer.
Benavente’s research aims to explain the role of the chromatin remodeling protein UHRF1 as a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of osteosarcoma, a childhood cancer of the bone. “Our data shows that targeting UHRF1 overexpression dramatically increases survival in mice bearing osteosarcoma tumors and reduces the rate and number of metastases, which is the main cause of death in patients with this disease,” Benavente said. “This project aims to further understand this process in order to help design novel therapeutic interventions for osteosarcoma treatment.” Osteosarcoma is the eight most common form of childhood cancer and has a survival rate of just over 50 percent.
The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences would like to congratulate Dr. Claudia Benavente on her grant.