Source: Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center
Written by: Office of International Collaboration and Public Relations, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC), a strong partner of the internationally renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center, is to work on 4 collaborative research projects through the Sister Institution Network Fund (SINF).
 
The SINF, Sister Institution Network Fund, is a Global Academic Program created in 2010 by the MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States to support financially Sister Institutions worldwide in order to seed collaborative oncology research projects between the MD Anderson, its Sister Institutions, extensions and other global partners.
 
The projects require collaboration between at least one MD Anderson Cancer Center Faculty/Staff and principal Investigators from one or more of the 34 Sister Institutions located in 21 countries, prestigious cancer centers across the world. 
 
Each application is to be scored following the NIH review criteria, considering the significance, investigators, innovation, approach and environment of the submitted research project. SINF is a highly competitive program whose goal is to improve the collaboration between the Sister Institutions in order to lessen cancer impact.
 
For this fourth round of SINF funding, the Global Academic Program granted SYSUCC 4 major projects in various areas, two of them being Cancer Moon Shot Programs.
 
For the year 2014, the 4 projects selected awarded 5 Principal Investigators from SYSUCC for the SINF: Professor Chao-Nan Qian (Department of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma), Professor Xiaoming Xie (Department of Breast Oncology), Professor Dan Xie (Department of Pathology), Professor Yaojun Zhang (Department of Hepatocellular Carcinoma), and Professor Hui Liu (Department of Radiation Oncology).   
 
Each project would gain from this international collaboration for geographical and ethnical comparison, expanded research, utilization of newly instituted tissue banking effort, acquired knowledge on basic molecular biology and treatment of cancer patients.
 
We hope that by all of those collaborative projects on going, we can strengthen our relationship with MD Anderson as well as the other Sister Institutions, in the war fighting cancer. 

List of the 4 granted projects for SYSUCC:
 
Coordinated regulation of glycolysis and mitochondrial metabolism in tumorigenesis
 
Development of biomarkers to predict cetuximab resistance
 
Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging for early response assessment of neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy in patients with esophageal carcinoma
 
Novel point-of-care tool to predict response to sorafenib in hepateocellular carcinoma