The Mary Kay Foundation announced that UT Health San Antonio is among its 2020 cancer grant recipients. The grants are awarded annually to top accredited research institutions in the United States conducting innovative translational research to better understand cancers that affect women.
Zhijie “Jason” Liu, PhD, assistant professor of molecular medicine in the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine and an investigator with the Mays Cancer Center, home to UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson, will leverage the $100,000 Mary Kay Foundation grant to study estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), a biomarker of breast cancer. Dr. Liu is exploring the role of ERα cofactors that enable reprogramming of proteins during breast cancer progression, leading to hormone therapy resistance.