In 2005, Tennessee philanthropists Jim and Janet Ayers gave $10 million to help Vanderbilt University scientists find early markers for colorectal cancer that could improve diagnosis and potentially save lives.<\/p>\n
Within nine years, the gift, which established the Jim Ayers Institute for Precancer Detection and Diagnosis at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), had yielded an impressive return: identification of protein \u201csignatures\u201d of the genetic mutations that drive the nation\u2019s second leading cancer killer after lung cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can argue that it\u2019s now within our grasp to change the outcome for patients with several types of cancers because of the knowledge gained,\u201d said VICC director Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D. \u201cIt was money well invested.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ayers Institute really launched proteomics (the study of proteins) in cancer diagnostics as a national enterprise,\u201d added Ayers Institute director Dan Liebler, Ph.D., Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and a nationally known expert in the field.<\/p>\n
The research enabled by the Ayers Institute provided the \u201cproof of concept,\u201d he said. It \u201cconvinced us that it\u2019s time to develop protein-based diagnostics that would guide new cancer therapeutics.\u201d<\/p>\n
So highly regarded is the research generated at the Ayers Institute that it has attracted $125 million in funding from external sources. Meanwhile, the work at Vanderbilt continues, in genomics as well as proteomics, imaging and bioinformatics, the development of techniques for handling huge amounts of data.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we can begin to piece together part of the puzzle we never had before,\u201d said Pietenpol, the Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology.<\/p>\n
Success in science requires people who ask good questions and are passionate about making change. \u201cThat\u2019s Dan Liebler,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s the Ayerses. Together, they did things far beyond our ideas when the institute was formed. That\u2019s the real gift of the Ayers Institute.\u201d<\/p>\n
The seed for the Ayers Institute was planted about 12 years ago during a conversation Jim Ayers had with friend and fellow philanthropist Orrin Ingram, chair of the VICC Board of Overseers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him \u2026 I would love to have the satisfaction of knowing that I had contributed something to mankind that might actually save a lot of lives,\u201d recalled Ayers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2005, Tennessee philanthropists Jim and Janet Ayers gave $10 million to help Vanderbilt University scientists find early markers for colorectal cancer that could improve diagnosis and potentially save lives. Within nine years, the gift, which established the Jim Ayers Institute for Precancer Detection and Diagnosis at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), had yielded an impressive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[36,28,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-giving-in-action","category-vm-vanderbilt-community","category-winter-2016"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-gn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2698,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions\/2698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}