Six USC School of Pharmacy and Keck School of Medicine of USC faculty members were awarded grants at the STOP CANCER 26th Annual Educational Forum and Research Awards Dinner on Jan. 22, at UCLA Luskin Conference Center.

Houda Alachkar, PhD, assistant professor of clinical pharmacy, and Shannon Mumenthaler, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, were awarded STOP CANCER Member Seed Grants.

Josh Neman, PhD, assistant professor of neurological surgery, was awarded the Florence Ajamian Seed Grant.

Jun Wang, PhD, assistant professor of research preventive medicine, received the Marni Levine Memorial Seed Grant.

Jianming Xie, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences, was awarded the Chang & Dodd Family Memorial Seed Grant.

Yong (Tiger) Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences, was awarded the STOP CANCER Research Career Development Award.

STOP CANCER grants are given to the most promising scientists at USC Norris, UCLA’s Jonsson and City of Hope comprehensive cancer centers.  Awardees are selected each year based on nominations from each cancer center’s internal peer review recommendations.

Each STOP CANCER Research Career Development Award of $150,000 provides three years of research support  while a STOP CANCER Seed Grant of $25,000 provides one year of support. In addition to these grants, the respective comprehensive cancer centers match the amount with in-kind funds and support in the form of space, equipment, secretarial and administrative support, telephones, laboratory supplies, underlying salary support and other services and interactions between faculty and awardees. With this matching support, an RCDA is valued at over $300,000 and a Seed Grant is valued at $50,000.