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KU Cancer Center hires researchers to aid quest for NCI designation

Professors bring more than $3 million of funding

The KU Cancer Center has recruited two researchers that bring with them a total of $3 million in National Cancer Institute funding. The research dollars will help achieve the critical requirement of $11 million in total NCI grant funding needed to apply for designation as a national cancer center.

Sharmila Shankar will be an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Rakesh Srivastava will be a professor of pharmacology, toxicology and therapeutics.

“Our focus has been on recruiting new researchers who have NCI-funded research in order to help us meet the requirement of having a strong funding base before we apply for designation,” said Roy A. Jensen, director of the KU Cancer Center. “Drs. Shankar and Srivastava have an incredible track record of NCI funding with a strong background in cancer prevention and drug development. We are thrilled to have them on our team.”

Both come to the medical center from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. Srivastava was a professor and Shankar was assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Medicine. Their research focus is on the molecular mechanisms of cancer cell growth and death and on developing novel drugs that treat and prevent cancers.

Srivastava did a postdoctoral fellowship at the NCI from 1994 to1996 when he was also awarded a Fogarty International Fellowship by the National Institutes of Health.

To apply for designation in September 2011, the cancer center must have a strong base of funding from the NCI to demonstrate the amount of cancer-focused research being conducted.

“Our needs right now fall into a simple equation: We need to recruit world-class researchers who already have NCI funding, and we need state-of-the-art facilities in which to house them,” Jensen said. “Bringing these two recruits on board moves us closer to meeting these needs and fulfilling our goal of achieving NCI designation.”