DUARTE, Calif., May 15, 2006  – Yanhong Shi, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurosciences, City of Hope, has been selected by the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research to receive a two-year, $200,000 Kimmel Scholar Award for novel brain tumor research. Each year, more than 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with a primary or secondary brain tumor.

Shi and her research team will examine brain tumor cells and their relationship to an orphan nuclear receptor called TLX.  TLX is responsible for the maintenance, proliferation and self-renewal of adult neural stem cells.   The researchers will investigate whether brain tumor cells also use TLX to grow and multiply. Results of this research could lead to new ways of attacking brain tumors by affecting the cells’ TLX sensitivity genes.

“I am honored to be a recipient of the Kimmel Award and excited by the prospects of this research,” Shi said.  “We believe the findings may have great potential for novel therapies to treat brain tumors, which are often aggressive and difficult to treat using standard therapies.”

The Kimmel Scholar Awards were created in 1997 to help young, gifted scientists in their cancer research. Shi is one of 15 recipients of the 2006 awards, for which nearly 200 researchers had applied.

About the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research

In addition to the Kimmel Scholar Program, the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research has funded four cancer centers at San Diego, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University and Johns Hopkins University. The gift to Johns Hopkins, $150 million, is the largest gift ever received by that institution. In the area of arts and culture, The Kimmel Foundation has supported the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia as well as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., among others. 

For more information about this year’s scholars or the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research visit www.kimmel.org/cancerresearch.