Congressman Cohen Announces $805,047 in NIH Grants to St. Jude and UTHSC

WASHINGTON - Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) today announced that St. Jude Children's Research Hospital will receive two grants and the University of Memphis will receive one grant from the National Institutes of Health. The first of the St. Jude grants for $416,250, from the National Cancer Institute, is for pancreatic cancer research under the direction of Dr. Christopher Vakoc. The goal of the project is to identify new cellular signaling pathways to help develop novel therapeutics. The second St. Jude grant, for $79,780 from the National Institute on Aging, is for Alzheimer's disease research under the direction of Dr. Jay Michael Yarbro.

The University of Memphis grant, for $309,017 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, is for work on wearable sensing devices for precision COPD risk prediction under the direction of Dr. Maryam Karimi of the School of Public Health.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

"Understanding and treating pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer's and COPD will improve the quality of patients' lives. I commend Drs. Vakoc, Yarbro and Karimi for the life-saving work they are doing."

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