Jeffery M. Klco, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Pathology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), has received a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists (CAMS). A highly competitive program, CAMS provides $700,000 awards over five years for physician-scientists, who are committed to an academic career, to bridge advanced postdoctoral/fellowship training and the early years of faculty service. Proposals must be in the area of basic biomedical, disease-oriented or translational research.
Dr. Klco and his team are investigating how disrupting signals in the bone marrow can influence blood stem cells, which give rise to all the other blood cells of an animal. They will also investigate how introducing certain inhibitors will affect the development and growth rate of different cells in the bone marrow. The research will expand understanding of how blood cells develop. Dr. Klco and his team hope to ultimately improve treatment options for diseases like leukemia, cancer of the blood, which is one of the most common cancers among children.
“This award will allow us to aggressively pursue novel approaches to treating patients with leukemia by understanding how different cell populations can influence the growth and development of leukemia,” Dr. Klco said. His research team will be located at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where he is an assistant member in the Department of Pathology.
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) is an independent private foundation dedicated to advancing the biomedical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities. Within this broad mission, BWF has two primary goals:
- To help scientists early in their careers develop as independent investigators
- To advance fields in the basic biomedical sciences that are undervalued or in need of particular encouragement
A Board of Directors comprising distinguished scientists and business leaders governs BWF. BWF was founded in 1955 as the corporate foundation of the pharmaceutical firm Burroughs Wellcome Co. In 1993, a generous gift from the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom enabled BWF to become fully independent from the company, which was acquired by Glaxo in 1995. BWF has no affiliation with any corporation. For more information about BWF, visit: www.bwfund.org.