Texas cancer agency at odds over $3B grant

Austin, Texas ? It's been a tumultuous few months for Texas's cancer-fighting program.

The agency, whose annual meeting begins today, has seen mass resignations, accusations of politics overtaking science and new divisions over how the state should best spend $3 billion in taxpayer money fighting cancer over the next decade.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas is trying to repair a once-celebrated image that has been battered by top scientists publicly condemning the agency over how it operates the nation's second-biggest pot of cancer research dollars.

Thirty-three of the agency's scientific peer reviewers have recently resigned, many in protest. They include a Nobel laureate and other top names in the science community who say politics have seeped into decisions over which projects get funding and which don't.

Bill Gimson, the agency's executive director since it was founded in 2007, again denied those accusations Tuesday on the eve of what is expected to be the agency's largest annual meeting yet. Nearly 900 scientists and agency stakeholders are expected to attend.

"Obviously we will address issues that have surfaced," Gimson said. "I think, more importantly, we will reconfirm our commitment to a gold-standard peer review and picking the very best projects."

Nobel laureate Dr. Phillip Sharp, who headed the agency's scientific review council, wrote in a resignation letter this month that the agency is making funding decisions that carry a "suspicion of favoritism" in how the state is handing out taxpayer dollars. Others were more blunt: Dr. William Kaelin of Harvard Medical School, who also served on the council, accused the agency of "hucksterism."

The backlash stems from a $20 million commercialization grant awarded earlier this year for a so-called incubator project at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It was among the largest grants in the agency's young history and was approved without a scientific review, leading the agency's chief scientific officer to step down.

"If I could do that one grant over again, I would do it differently," said Gimson, adding that the agency has since reviewed its review process.

Gimson said the agency is still searching for a new chief scientific officer. Agency officials at this week's meeting are also scheduled to discuss proposed changes to how the state divvies up grant awards between research, prevention and commercialization efforts to bring new drugs to market.

Site seeks Web surf help

A British cancer group is turning to an unorthodox source of help in an effort to speed its research: Web surfers.
Today, Cancer Research U.K. is launching a website driven by crowd-sourcing, asking people to help spot trends in tumors. Ordinary citizens have already helped make important discoveries in other fields such as astronomy and archaeology.
"There are cures for cancer buried in our data," the website says. "Help us find them."
The group is asking volunteers to look through tens of thousands of pictures of breast cancer cells left over from recent studies and help categorize them. If successful, experts will then include samples from patients with other types of cancer.

Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121024/NATION/210240335/1020/rss09

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