Kansas City, Mo. (Jan. 14, 2009) – Karen Smith, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Stowers Institute’s Workman Lab, has been awarded the American Cancer Society’s 2009 Cattle Baron’s Ball of Lubbock Postdoctoral Fellowship.

     The award of $150,000 over three years will support Dr. Smith’s efforts to find better drug targets for the treatment of breast cancer. She is investigating what makes breast cancer cells grow uncontrollably and how the growth of cancer cells might be stopped.

     “Receiving this fellowship is a great honor,” said Dr. Smith. “This award will help support my professional development by allowing me to pursue an area of research that represents an exciting new direction for the Workman Lab.”

     “Dr. Smith is doing innovative work aimed at identifying the specific protein complexes that are inhibited by histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors in a way that impedes cancer,” said Jerry Workman, Ph.D., Investigator. “This work has the potential to reveal more precise anti-cancer drug targets, which is encouraging because drugs targeted specifically to inhibit cancer-related HDAC complexes should be effective and have fewer side effects than drugs that inhibit HDAC complexes in a less specific way.”

     The Lubbock Cattle Baron’s Ball has raised more than four million dollars to fund cancer research, education, and support programs since its inception in 1983. More than 1,500 people attend the Ball each year.

About the Stowers Institute for Medical Research
     Housed in a 600,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility on a 10-acre campus in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research is home to 22 independent research teams, three technology centers, nine research support facilities, and more than 400 members who have assembled in Kansas City from across the nation and 20 + countries around the world.

     The Institute's laboratory leaders include recipients of some of the world's most prestigious scientific awards and honors. Among them are: four elected Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; one current and two previous Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators; an American Cancer Society Research Professor; six researchers recognized by the Nature Publishing Group for milestone discoveries in their fields of research; seven March of Dimes Basil O'Connor Scholars; two Pew Scholars; a Searle Scholar; a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences; a Klingenstein Fellow; and a recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.