NCI grants $12.1 million for USC center to study obesity ...( LOS ANGELES (Oct. 11 2005)-The Nationa...),Health

The Keck School of Medicine of USC is one of four institutions nationwide selected by the NCI to conduct the five-year, $54 million Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) initiative, which will unite researchers who focus on diet, weight and physical activity and their effects on cancer.

"TREC will bring together outstanding scientists from many disciplines," says Robert Croyle, Ph.D., director of NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. "Together these experts will answer critical questions that will help guide our nation's public health efforts. NCI is determined to help avoid an increase in cancer deaths in the 21st century due to obesity like the one caused by tobacco in the 20th century."

Keck School researchers specifically will address how to deter cancer by preventing and controlling obesity during childhood and adolescence: the critical, formative period that sets the stage for the remainder of the life cycle.

"Obesity and related factors such as poor diet and inactivity are known to contribute to cancer risk, and these are factors we can actually do something about," says Michael I. Goran, Ph.D., Keck School professor of preventive medicine and physiology and biophysics, associate director of the USC Institute for Prevention Research and director of the new TREC Center at USC. "Our goal is to study obesity from all directions-from physiology to behavior-and focus on children from high-risk ethnic groups to further understand ethnic disparities in the relationships between obesity, metabolism and health."

Leslie Bernstein, Ph.D., AFLAC Chair in Cancer Research and professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School, serves as as
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Contact: Jon Weiner
jon.weiner@usc.edu
323-442-2830
University of Southern California
11-Oct-2005