A new program from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is designed to develop new tools for investigating how environmental exposures affect children’s heath. The Masonic Cancer Center has been awarded $5.1 million over four years as part of this project. Two MSI Principal Investigators who are members of the Center, Professor Lisa Peterson (Division of Environmental Health Sciences) and Professor Stephen Hecht (Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and Department of Medicinal Chemistry), are the lead researchers on this project.
Professor Peterson uses software available through MSI to study products formed when carcinogens and/or their metabolites modify important biomolecules such as DNA and proteins. Professor Hecht uses MSI for his study of the structure of DNA adducts caused by compounds in tobacco that are involved in cancer development.
A news release about this grant and the project can be found on the Health Sciences website.