RBC Insurance awards $100,000 grant to Hollings Cancer Center

RBC Insurance will donate $100,000 to The Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) to support cancer stem cell research. The gift will be used to fund seed grants for research projects within the South Carolina Center for Economic Excellence (CoEE) in Cancer Stem Cell Biology and Therapy at Hollings.

“Supporting medical science is the key to advancing our progress in the fight against cancer,” said Andrew S. Kraft, MD, director of Hollings, a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. “With government funding for cancer research flat for most of this decade, the value of private contributions like this one from RBC Insurance cannot be overstated.”

The role of stem cells in cancer is an explosive area of research with the potential to unlock some of cancer’s mysteries, such as why the disease can be so resistant to current therapies. Development of specific therapies targeted at cancer stem cells could extend and improve quality of life for patients.

Unlike embryonic stem cells, there is a clear window for developing new technologies related to isolating, growing, and manipulating cancer stem cells, which are found within tumors or blood cancers and possess traits associated with healthy stem cells.

“In 2005, we donated $100,000 to help Hollings pursue its National Cancer Institute designation. This has helped establish South Carolina as a national leader in cancer care and research, bringing jobs and collateral economic benefit to our state,” said David Black, head of U.S. insurance operations at RBC Insurance. “Today we are taking a step further, providing seed money for research that will have a direct impact in the fight against this terrible disease.”

The seed grants will support translational research, the process through which discoveries made in the laboratory are used to improve patient care.

“We call this “bench to bedside” research, and it’s the key to achieving new breakthroughs in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases,” said MUSC President Raymond S. Greenberg, MD, PhD. “Seed grants, or pilot research funding, provides investigators the necessary resources to compile preliminary data to support a new hypothesis.  These preliminary data are essential in successfully competing for larger federal funding, such as from the National Institutes of Health.”