Aug. 31--Northwestern University on Monday said it received an $11.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to further its research on cancer treatments.
The school's Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence will use the funding to continue its research on spherical nucleic acids, tiny particles the university created in the mid-1990s out of strands of DNA and RNA.
The money, which will be disbursed over five years, will help fund research into how to use spherical nucleic acids to treat cancer, said Chad Mirkin, director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology.
Separately, investigators from Northwestern and the University of Chicago received a $6.25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund research to end "the HIV epidemic in Chicago among young men who have sex with men," according to a news release from Northwestern.
The funds will create the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research, a partnership between the two universities and the Chicago Department of Public Health, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, the Alliance of Chicago Community Health Systems and the Center on Halsted.
acancino@tribpub.com
