The University of Cincinnati has announced a $2 million gift from the Harold C. Schott Foundation and a $4.5 million institutional investment from the UC College of Medicine to launch a new Brain Tumor Molecular Therapeutics Program. The gift from the foundation also will be used to establish an endowed chair of molecular therapeutics in brain tumors.

The program will work to improve understanding of the biological mechanisms that allow cancer to spread to the brain and enable researchers to develop more effective ways of treating the condition. According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 170,000 such cases are diagnosed annually. A collaboration of the UC Cancer Institute and the UC Neuroscience Center, the Brain Tumor Molecular Therapeutics Program is believed to be the first comprehensive brain metastasis-specific translational research program in the United States.

"For a long time, brain metastases have been treated as an orphan disease — given little research funding and stalling any progress toward improved treatment strategies," said UC Brain Tumor Center director Dr. Ronald Warnick. "We hope to change that through this new program by investigating mechanisms by which the primary cancer gains access to the bloodstream and establishes tumors in the brain."