Cancer researcher wins NIH innovator award

A researcher at Huntsman Cancer Institute will receive a National Institutes of Health "New Innovator Award," which is $1.5 million over five years for research. NIH is awarding 29 of them nationwide.

Jody Rosenblatt, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of oncological sciences. The project that will be funded focuses on identifying signals that govern how dying cells are squeezed out of tissues by surrounding cells. Rosenblatt intends to study the role that the process plays in normal tissue function and in development of cancer.

She is an Olympus High School graduate who received her bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She received her doctorate at the University of California, San Francisco, and did postdoctoral work at University College London in the United Kingdom.

In addition to the 29 new innovator grants, NIH director Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni also announced 12 Pioneer Awards. Both awards programs are part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research Initiative that tests new ways to support research.

"The conceptual and technological breakthroughs that are likely to emerge from their highly innovative approaches to major research challenges could speed progress toward important medical advances," Zerhouni said in a statement that accompanied the awards announcement.

This is the first group of "New Innovator Awards" and the fourth group of Pioneer Awards. The innovator awards are for young researchers who have not yet received a regular NIH grant or award.