Two Jonsson Cancer Center researchers win NIH New Innovator Awards

Two researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have won prestigious New Innovator Awards from the NIH to fund their leading-edge research. Siavash Kurdistani, an assistant professor of biological chemistry, and Cho-Lea Tso, an adjunct assistant professor of hematology/oncology, each will receive five-year, $1.5 million grants to help accelerate discovery of more effective, less toxic treatments for cancer. Kurdistani's grant will fund cancer epigenetics research, while Tso's will fund brain cancerstem cells  research. The grants to Kurdistani and Tso were among 55 New Innovator Awards totaling $131 million given out today to early-stage investigators. In all, 115 grants totaling $348 million in three different categories were awarded by the NIH to encourage investigators to explore bold ideas that have the potential to catapult research forward.