Researchers at the School of Medicine have received $25 million in grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop new cancer diagnostic techniques and therapies and to advance the understanding of cancer cell biology.

The first of the grants gives $10 million to the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center at Stanford (ICMIC), which combines researchers in chemistry, materials science and engineering, molecular imaging, oncology, cancer biology, protein engineering, biostatistics and mathematical modeling. The center, led by co-principal investigators Christopher Contag, associate professor of microbiology and immunology, and Sanjiv Gambhir, professor of radiology, is working to develop molecular imaging that will enable new cancer research and improve cancer-patient management.

Several of these projects, including positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance and optical imaging, aim to advance current understanding of cancer cell biology and to optimize new cancer therapies and will be funded by the award.

The second grant, worth $15 million, was awarded to the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and Translation (CCNE-T), which, like ICMIC, draws together researchers from radiology, bioengineering, materials science, oncology and other departments to develop nanotechnology to promote earlier cancer detection and improve doctors’ ability to monitor patients’ responses to anti-cancer therapy.
CCNE-T is headed by Gambhir and Shan Wang, professor of materials science and engineering. The center is developing the next generation of smart nanoparticles, magnetonanotechnology for cell sorting and other cancer imaging techniques and therapies.