Gunda Georg, a senior Kansas University medicinal chemistry professor, has received a $10.4 million federal grant to mentor fellow faculty members across Kansas and support their promising research in the battle against cancer.

Georg, a distinguished professor in KU’s School of Pharmacy and director of the Center for Cancer Experimental Therapeutics at the Kansas Masonic Cancer Institute, received the five-year grant from the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

COBRE previously awarded Georg a similar $10 million grant in 2000; it ended this summer. That grant was leveraged into more than $30 million in additional grant funding, Georg said.

Assisting Georg as co-principal investigator on the grant will be Richard Himes, KU professor emeritus in the Molecular Biosciences Department.

The COBRE program at NIH specifically provides research funding to 23 less-populated states, including Kansas, that have been deemed by the federal government to generally receive less overall NIH funding than more populous states.