Texas: Leading the Global Effort to End Cancer
Some of the world’s most impactful cancer research is happening in Texas. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is ranked No. 1 in the nation for cancer care, and The University of Texas at Austin is one of the top public research universities in the world.
The University of Texas System recently announced that MD Anderson will build a new, comprehensive cancer center and UT Austin will build a specialty hospital at what will become the UT Austin Medical Center.
Further, two strategic collaborations between MD Anderson and UT Austin, launched in 2019, already are providing opportunities for joint cancer research projects with unprecedented scope – from highly specialized, patient-centric clinical studies, to broader projects aimed at reducing cancer diagnoses across society.
Seed projects in both collaborations are supported at a level of up to $50,000 for one year. Four funding cycles have been completed since the projects began in 2020.
MD Anderson – UT Austin Strategic Collaboration
MD Anderson and UT Austin have a broad strategic initiative aimed at promoting cooperative research between the two institutions across a variety of cancer-related fields. Initial research themes have been identified based on the shared mutual interests of researchers, including:
- Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer
- Frontiers of Neuroscience
- Obesity
- Population Health
The strategic initiative is an organic effort leaving open the opportunity for additional themes to emerge as new scholars and clinicians bring novel expertise, revealing innovative directions for future studies.
Collaboration in Oncological Data and Computational Science
The Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and MD Anderson are collaborating in oncological data and computational science research.
This collaboration combines:
- Medical expertise and rich medical data (MD Anderson)
- Mathematical modeling and computational medicine expertise (Oden Institute)
- Leading high-performance computing capabilities (TACC)
The Collaboration in Oncological Data and Computational Science has resulted in discoveries of several new clinical approaches for cancer treatment as well as novel insights for improving outcomes for patients with unmet needs. Plans are in place for the establishment of a permanent shared center dedicated to oncological data and computational science research.