University of Iowa-Mayo cancer collaboration lands $12.4 million

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa's research into how best to treat lymphoma has landed another $12.4 million grant for the UI-Mayo Clinic collaboration.

The renewed five-year National Cancer Institute grant for the 'Specialized Program of Research Excellence”- or SPORE - comes despite an increasingly competitive environment where federal funding is tight.

'We know how incredibly competitive these grants are,” Dr. George Weiner, director of the UI Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, told The Gazette. 'Even long-standing grants, many of them don't get renewed.”

Fewer than 20 percent of research applications receive funding, according to Weiner. And the longer a project persists, the higher the bar for renewed funding.

That, he said, is what makes the government's continued support for the 15-year-old UI-Mayo collaboration - focused on developing new lymphoma prevention, detection and treatment methods - both impressive and indicative of its possibilities.

Lymphoma is a type of cancer that attacks the body's immune system. An estimated 816,000 people are living with or in remission from lymphoma in the United States, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

The UI-Mayo Clinic research - first funded by the National Cancer Institute in 2002, with renewals in 2007, 2012 and now in 2017 - has received more than $46 million in federal funding.

'If we've been doing it for a long time, the NCI actually expects more,” Weiner said. 'If you've already spent all this money, you really need to show us that you make good use of it in order for us to continue to support you.”

The UI-Mayo successes have met those standards, according to Weiner.

Early on in the collaboration, researchers began asking patients if they'd volunteer their biopsies and treatment information for further study of the illness.

More than 7,000 people have said yes over the years, making it the strongest lymphoma-specific registry in the world.

Those folks provided feedback on treatment outcomes, side effects and other health-related issues, according to Weiner.

'They are the real heroes here,” he said.

With its 'translational research” mission - to bring scientific discoveries directly to patients - Weiner noted one of the SPORE team's more basic discoveries: Vitamin D matters.

Patients with low vitamin D levels did not do well with treatment, Weiner said.

'That really is something that's pretty straightforward,” he said. 'Now, nationally people who are diagnosed with lymphoma get a vitamin D level check, and if the vitamin D level is low, they're told to take some vitamin D.”

The research team also has discovered that CT scans a year after treatment typically don't provide much information. So doctors no longer are doing them, saving millions.

The partnership hits at the heart of a Cancer Moonshot Summit that former Vice President Joe Biden initiated last year. The discussion, in which UI cancer researchers participated, highlighted the importance of collaboration.

'As opposed to competing with each other, we have been working together, and that's allowed us to do things we never would have done otherwise,” Weiner said.

Looking forward, the scientists are helping to describe why lymphoma patients' immune systems don't respond the way they should.

'We have begun to explore ways to more effectively get the immune system to fight off lymphoma,” Weiner said. 'And that's a very exciting area that we think in the next five years is going to be particularly promising.”

If those expectations materialize, Weiner said, he expects the collaboration 'will continue far into the future.”

'We think it's very well worth the money,” he said. 'We're excited about the potential discoveries and, more importantly, moving those discoveries so they help patients.”

Weiner also noted that - although scientists of previous generations have sought a 'cure for cancer” - evolving science has illuminated the stark reality that such a blanket cure will never come. The illness is 'much more complex than we ever imagined.”

'Sadly, I don't see a day when cancer is eliminated as a public health problem,” he said. 'But I think the potential to make progress and reduce the pain and suffering from cancer has never been greater.

'And the progress we're making is faster than ever before.”

l Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com