The Hormel Institute is receiving a $425,000 grant to support cancer prevention research.

The National Cancer Institute, part of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health, approved the eight-month grant this week for The Hormel Institute’s associate director, Dr. Ann Bode, who is the project’s principal investigator. Executive Director Dr. Zigang Dong and Bode co-lead the Cellular and Molecular Biology section, the largest laboratory at The Hormel Institute.

Bode’s research team will use cell culture (maintenance and growth of cells outside the body) to investigate the effects of potential chemo-preventive, anti-cancer agents. The team will identify how the anti-cancer agents affect how the cells work.

“This project focuses on the development and testing of specific drugs provided by the National Cancer Institute for cancer treatment and prevention,” Bode said. “Specifically, we will be testing their effectiveness in treating and preventing breast and colon cancer.”

One of the major goals, Bode said, is to identify biomarkers that can predict the effectiveness of the drug in specific types of cancer patients in order to optimize treatment and efficacy.

The Hormel Institute specializes in researching nontoxic, natural compounds that can be used to prevent, control or cure cancer. It comprises a group of medical scientists who have focused on determining the basic molecular mechanisms of cancer development to use their finding for developing new anti-cancer agents.