(Todd Ackerman & Eric Berger, Houston Chronicle)
Two members of a state cancer review panel that gave an “enthusiastic” recommendation to fund a $20 million grant proposal from Rice University and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center were participants in the project.
A third member of the five-person panel also has ties to leaders at M.D. Anderson, whose piece of the proposal was grafted onto Rice’s shortly before the submission deadline and approved in March. The result was the largest grant ever awarded by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, or CPRIT, a $3 billion assault on cancer approved by voters in 2007.
The revelation of conflicts of interest raises new questions about an approval process that internal advisers have complained was hasty and opaque and bypassed appropriate scientific review. CPRIT officials have acknowledged it lacked customary in-person interviews of application team leaders.
CPRIT leaders said the conflicts of interest involved in the proposal were dealt with according to its policies. (Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle)
Emerging Debate:
• Cancer Research Group Objects to the Chronicle’s ‘Inflammatory’ Story (Houston Chronicle)
• A Difference of Opinion Over CPRIT Grant Award (Houston Chronicle)
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