American Cancer Society invests $1.6M in Mass researchers

Courtesy Photo The American Cancer Society is headquartered in Framingham.

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By Sam Bonacci

The American Cancer Society announced Thursday it will fund six grants totaling $1.6 million to researchers in Massachusetts.

The local grants are part of 87 national research and training grants totaling more than $45 million that will fund investigators at 64 institutions across the United States and go into effect Jan. 1.

Locally, the American Cancer Society is supporting researchers like Brian Kelch, from Worcester’s UMass Medical School, who has been awarded $788,000 to explore the behavior of the protein PCNA. The research will ultimately direct the development of chemotherapy drugs that target PCNA for cancer treatment, according to the Cancer Society. The organization currently has a total research investment of $38.6 million in Massachusetts.

The Council for Extramural Research also approved 88 grant applications for funding totaling $49,687,000 million that could not be funded due to budgetary constraints. These “pay-if” applications represent work that passed the Society’s multi-disciplinary review process but are beyond the Society’s current funding resources. They can be and often are subsidized by donors who wish to support research that would not otherwise be funded. In 2015, more than $11 million in additional funding helped finance 34 “pay-if” applications.