VCU program propels critical research projects

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VCU research professor Shijun Zhang is trying to solve one of the most important puzzles on the planet.

Adam Stern
Sports Editor

VCU research professor Shijun Zhang is trying to solve one of the most important puzzles on the planet.

Zhang – a professor of medicinal chemistry serving dual roles as researcher and teacher – is one half of a research duo given a $50,000 grant. The money, which gave them a roadmap in their quest to cure cancer, came thanks to a new research program introduced by second-year president, Dr. Michael Rao.

The VCU Presidential Research Incentive Program (or PRIP) awarded the $900,000 in grants to 22 different projects involving 27 faculty members out of 82 applications. Projects spanned disciplines all across the university ranging from life sciences to business.

“PRIP is very important to get your project started – especially as a young investigator – because once you get the exciting results, you want to sustain and maintain the funding,” Zhang said. “But without major federal funding you can’t, so PRIP is a good way of getting further evidence to support applications for federal funding.”

Zhang is collaborating with fellow research professor Tai Guo of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology to find a way to develop small molecules that shut down signaling pathways that cancer cells cling to remain viable. Most human bodies shut down one pathway at a time; if Zhang and Guo are successful, they’ll be able to shutdown multiple pathways simultaneously, which Zhang said greatly the chances of beating the disease.

Simply put, the grant allowed Zhang and Guo to become two soldiers on the frontline in the bid to cure cancer.

“To go out and just produce data without funding or backing is generally not something you see because you …  just don’t have any sort of incentive to do that,” Jessica Venable, grant and research analyst in the office of research, said. “So to have seed funding from a university is very helpful to get that first step towards federal funding.”

Seed funding like PRIP is meant to act as an initial, 18-month catalyst to what are usually multi-year programs. This allows researchers to develop preliminary evidence – key in applications for future federal funding grants which feature much more significant endowments.

Another notable component of the PRIP project is its emphasis on cross-discipline research. It stresses the combination of different areas of experts in research projects.

“(Cross-discipline research) has become the coin of the realm,” Francis Macrina, Ph. D., VCU’s vice president for research, said. “Pressing questions being asked do require inter-disciplinary research, so it’s become commonplace … simply because the niches of expertise are so different that you have to create a culture that reaches out to different people that would never have envisioned doing so.”

With such a strong response in the first round of funding, Macrina asked Rao for a second round of funding; Rao has obliged. And after the first round’s 22 projects amounted to more than $900,000 being donated to the program, it looks like another equally large sum could be open to VCU professors.

But if this money can eventually accomplish the sort of goals that Zhang is shooting for, Macrina said it will have been worth every penny.

“This isn’t about getting grant support and after the 18 months are up, going back to what you were doing (before the program started),” Macrina said. “This has to do with leveraging funds to grow into bigger and better things.”

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