ATLANTA, GA – Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) announced on March 6, 2024, that Team SAMBAI, a global team led by Melissa B. Davis, PhD, director of the MSM Institute of Translational Genomic Medicine, has been awarded a $25 million grant funded by Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute, through Cancer Grand Challenges, to address cancer disparities in populations of African ancestry, becoming the first Cancer Grand Challenge awardee to focus on cancer inequities.
Team SAMBAI stands for “Societal, Ancestry, Molecular and Biological Analyses of Inequalities”; Dr. Davis is leading an interdisciplinary research group from the United States, Ghana, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The award is the first to focus on health disparities and to be led by an African American woman; it is also the first grant awarded to a researcher at a Historically Black Medical School and the first given to an institution in Georgia, the home state of Morehouse.
“We are so incredibly proud of Dr. Davis’s leadership in directing the effort to create a truly historic and precedent setting winning proposal to Cancer Grand Challenges that holds the potential to have a tremendous impact on how we treat cancer for people with African ancestry,” said MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice.
“For nearly 50 years, the driving mission of Morehouse School of Medicine has been to address health inequities for communities of color, and we are honored to have the unique opportunity to carry that mission forward in partnership with Cancer Grand Challenges.”
Dr. Davis noted that Morehouse School of Medicine is one of just five world-class global research teams to win this award. “I want to extend my appreciation to Cancer Research UK, the National Cancer Institute, Cancer Grand Challenges, my Team SAMBAI colleagues around the world, and my [MSM team].” She…
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