University of Arkansas Gets Cancer Research Funds

Researchers at the University of Arkansas have been awarded $1.5 million from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health to develop new molecules and biopharmaceuticals that improve a patient's immune response against tumors.

The goal of the five-year grant is attack hidden metastatic tumors and prevent cancer recurrence. Metastasis is the development of a secondary malignancy away from the primary site of cancer.

David Zaharoff, the principal investigator for the UA project, says metastasis - not a patient's primary tumor – is what kills in about 90 percent of cancer deaths.