University of Louisville receives $11.5 million federal grant for cancer immunotherapy

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The University of Louisville has secured a major federal grant in order to pursue immunotherapy as a response to cancer. 

That grant, given by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, totals $11.5 million and will be used to establish the Center for Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy, U of L announced this week. 

The center will work on strategies that use the immune response to fight cancer, according to a news release. And the five-year grant will also help establish the center as a National Institutes of Health-designated Center of Biomedical Research Excellence.

This will help support young investigators and develop "additional basic, translational and clinical research" at the U of L Health – James Graham Brown Cancer Center, the release said.

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“One of the university’s Grand Challenges is to advance the health of all people,” U of L President Neeli Bendapudi said in a statement. “Through this center, our cancer researchers will grow the field of immunotherapy, saving the lives of many more patients with cancer in the future.”

For years, Kentucky has been one of the states most adversely impacted by cancer, a disease that kills more than 600,000 people in the United States on an annual basis. A 2019 report from the American Lung Association found that Kentucky has the highest rate of new lung cancer cases in the country.

Jeff Habermel, a cancer survivor, received two different immunotherapies at the Brown Cancer Center in the course of treatment for three different cancers, including metastasized melanoma, according to the release.

"We have a world-class facility right in our backyard,” Habermel said in a statement. “I truly feel I am the luckiest man in the world to live in a time when we have such technologies and such amazing abilities to treat cancer in these ways.”

The U of L Kosair Charities Pediatric Oncology Research Program will also partner with the center, as Kosair Charities has provided it with an additional $200,000 toward discovery and development of immunotherapy drugs for children with cancer.

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The grant itself may be extended for two additional five-year phases, according to the news release.

Dr. Jason Chesney, the director of the Brown Cancer Center, said in a statement that the center's "mission is to harness the power of the immune system to eradicate cancer."

"This grant from the federal government leverages our existing strengths in cancer immunology and clinical trials to accelerate the development of new immunotherapies that will translate into lives saved across the globe," Chesney said.

Contact Ben Tobin at bjtobin@gannett.com and 502-377-5675 or follow on Twitter @TobinBen. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: subscribe.courier-journal.com.