Cancer Research Center Established at UC Berkeley

A new center for cancer research has been established at UC Berkeley through a $15.7 grant over five years from the National Cancer Institute.

The institute announced Oct. 26 that it was establishing 12 Physical Sciences-Oncology centers at colleges and universities nationwide.

"By bringing a fresh set of eyes to the study of cancer, these new centers have great potential to advance and sometimes challenge accepted theories about cancer and its supportive microenvironment," said John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, in a statement.

UC Berkeley's new center will focus on the triple negative subtype of breast cancer, which can be particularly aggressive. The center is a collaboration between researchers at UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UCSF and San Francisco's Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Jan Liphardt, UC Berkeley associate professor of physics and deputy director of Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, and Valerie Weaver, UCSF associate professor of surgery and director of the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration, are leading the project for the UC Berkeley center.

Researchers from physical and biological sciences will collaborate on research for the center, which will be part of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences.