Mesothelioma Tissue Bank to Get $5.5M Grant
The National
Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB) is scheduled to receive $5.5 million
in grant funding to help it continue to fight for a cure for
mesothelioma.
According
to Grants.gov, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health (NIOSH) plans to provide the fund, which will last throughout
2021. The grant comes at a much-needed time for NMVB as it will allow
scientists and researchers the funding to continue to develop and test
novel medications to help mesothelioma patients. According to the
associate director of NIOSH, Dr. Ainsley Weston,
“It’s often
difficult to pull enough material together for [researching] a disease
like this. This project provides access to the tools that researchers
need to make progress.”
With additional funding, not only can NMVB
continue to test novel drugs, but it can also continue to develop
advanced diagnostic tools and therapies that can be shared with
mesothelioma researchers and physicians around the world.
So far,
there are thousands of biospecimens and mesothelioma cases as NMVB. With
the additional funding, the organization plans to:
- Enroll more patients in the tissue bank and enter them into the virtual registry
- Conduct additional studies
- Maintain an accurate record of requests from other researchers and scientists who requests samples from the tissue bank
- Record all presentations and publications
- Seek out collaborations with other medical facilities and researchers who have the same of goal of trying to cure mesothelioma
Mesothelioma Funding
There
still remains limited funding on finding a cure for mesothelioma, which
is why the news is so uplifting for NMVB that they received the grant.
In addition, since it’s still considered a rare disease, it’s often
difficult for researchers to recruit enough participants to help out
during clinical trials and other studies. This problem may be solved
with the funding from NIOSH as it will help researchers develop new,
innovative ideas. Dr. Weston indicated that the research doesn’t
necessarily always need additional patients with mesothelioma, as long
as the researchers are dedicated to the cure.
“A researcher with a great idea but no direct access to these types of tissues can get them here. This promotes the research.”
More about NMVB
Established
in 2006, NMVB is a a virtual biospecimen registry that helps
researchers have advanced understanding of mesothelioma. NMVB
researchers work to discover new preventative measures, novel treatment options
for mesothelioma, and accelerating the discovery the preventative
measures. The research is then put into a virtual database, using
a Model-Driven Development framework, which allows other researchers
from across the world to tap into it and get information on:
- Histiopathic type and grade
- Stages of mesothelioma
- Vital status and nodal status
- Recurrence information, and much more