Two University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researchers have each received a Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society (ACS), securing a combined $1.9 million to fund laboratory studies that may lead to new or more effective treatments for patients with few options.
Ka Wing Fong, Ph.D., and Xia Liu, Ph.D., both assistant professors in the UK College of Medicine's Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology, were among 36 Research Scholar Grant recipients named in the American Cancer Society's spring 2026 grant cycle. Each award will provide $946,000 to support their research projects over four years.
Fong's project targets treatment-resistant prostate cancer, and Liu's will focus on triple-negative breast cancer - two aggressive cancer types that have few effective treatment options.
Fong's research focuses on abnormal gene regulation and cell signaling in prostate cancer. With his ACS grant, he will study a protein called SETDB1, which is found at abnormally high levels in about 15% of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer, a form of the disease that no longer responds to hormone therapy. His lab has found that SETDB1 suppresses another protein called RhoB, a change that drives cancer cells to spread and resist treatment. The grant will support his work to understand this process and test whether blocking SETDB1 or restoring RhoB can overcome that resistance.
Liu's lab focuses on understanding how breast cancer spreads, with the goal of finding new treatment targets. Her ACS grant will direct that work toward triple-negative breast cancer, which has limited treatment options and poor outcomes. Her project will build on her lab's finding that a specific type of immunosuppressive cell can block the body's response to anti-PD1 therapy, one of the few immune-based treatments approved for triple-negative breast cancer. By targeting a protein that drives production of these cells, the research aims to improve patient responses to anti-PD1 therapy and identify markers that could help predict who is likely to benefit from the treatment.
The American Cancer Society's Research Scholar Grant is one of the most established and competitive grant programs for independent cancer researchers in the U.S. It is designed to support early-career faculty who are establishing their first independent cancer research programs, providing sustained funding to build a research team and develop a body of work that can support larger grants over time.
Supported by grants RSG-26-1507013-01-TBE-Su25 and RSG-25-1520752-01-IBCD from the American Cancer Society.
