Dr. Joseph Cullen, MD, Professor of Surgery, has received notification that his P01 program grant, Exploiting Redox Metabolism Using Pharmacological Ascorbate for Cancer Therapy, will be funded by the National Cancer Institute. This highly integrated program project will test the hypothesis that pharmacological ascorbate can be used as an easily implementable clinical adjuvant to conventional radio-chemo-therapies that will selectively target cancer vs. normal cells by increasing H₂O₂ formation. Overall the proposed studies will have significant impact on the rapid development of pharmacological ascorbate as an agent to increase treatment efficacy that can be easily implemented in multi-institutional large scale phase 3 trials. The National Cancer Institute has approved funding of $1.9 million per year for five years.

Dr. Cullen joined the Dept. of Surgery in 1993, and currently is a Professor of Surgery in the Division of Gastrointestinal, Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery. In addition, he is Chief of Surgical Services at the VA Medical Center in Iowa City, Iowa. Douglas Spitz, PhD, Professor of Radiation Oncology, is also a principal investigator in this research project.