U-of-I hands out money for cancer treatment grants

The University of Iowa’s doling out money from a big grant for a cancer-fighting treatment discovered there. Doctor George Weiner directs the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa and teaches Internal Medicine. He explains that while research turns up a lot of interesting information all the time, part of the challenge for scientists is to make that revelant to medicine and patients who could benefit. Weiner explains it takes years, and the combined efforts of many researchers, to take a basic laboratory finding to the point where it helps somebody. “That’s really the goal of all research,” Weiner says. A discovery made at Iowa shows so much promise for practical use, it’s paying off for the cancer center — a commercial development company’s given the U-of-I a check for more than 9 million dollars toward the development and practical use of “Pro-Mune,” a treatment that promises to alert the body’s own disease-fighting immune system to tackle lung cancer, one of the hardest forms for conventional medicine to treat. Now the money’s being doled out, to individual researchers, their academic units, and a schoolwide research enrichment fund.