UT Institutions Receive new CPRIT Cancer Grants

AUSTIN, Texas - The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has awarded ten University of Texas institutions a total of 30 grants from CPRIT's May 2026 funding round. The awards span academic research, researcher recruitment incentives, core facility development, and research training - and include two of CPRIT's five inaugural Rural Clinical Trial Accelerator grants, which will bring new cancer trials to East Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.

"UT institutions are at the heart of efforts in Texas to advance new treatments for cancer," said UT System Chancellor John M. Zerwas, M.D. "For two decades, CPRIT has supported cancer research across the UT System and the state - we are all working together to put new treatments in the hands of Texas physicians, including those in rural areas with these new clinical trial accelerator grants."

CPRIT recently created new Rural Clinical Trial Accelerator Grants, which enable patients in rural and underserved communities to gain access to new treatments that previously would have required travel to academic centers in major Texas metros.

UT Rio Grande Valley received an accelerator grant to establish the UTRGV Rural Oncology Clinical Trials Accelerator, which will be housed within the new UT Health RGV Cancer and Surgery Center in McAllen. The initiative represents the Valley's first comprehensive oncology clinical trials infrastructure. UT Tyler also received an accelerator grant to expand its oncology clinical research program into Henderson County in rural East Texas, extending trial access to patients far from the state's major cancer centers.

Other CPRIT awards covered a fascinating array of discovery pathways. Highlights include:

• $15 million from the CPRIT Scholars program to UT institutions to recruit top researchers.
• $2 million to UT Southwestern for a new medical imaging facility for tumor and biomarker research in real time.
• $5 million to UT MD Anderson for a statewide platform that will assess and improve long-term health outcomes in adolescent and young adult cancer survivors.
• $900,000 to UT Austin for researchers to explore how leukemia cells metabolically hijack patient cells to speed their proliferation and blunt immune responses.
• $250,000 to UT San Antonio for a project exploring the safe and robust use of AI in radiotherapy.