A researcher at the Morehouse School of Medicine has been awarded a historic $25 million grant for her team’s efforts in studying inequities in cancer outcomes for people and communities of African descent.

Melissa B. Davis, director of the MSM Institute of Translational Genomic Medicine, and her group Team SAMBAI were announced as one of five global research teams to receive the grant, funded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute through Cancer Grand Challenges on March 6.

This award marks the first time it has been given to a group focused on health disparities and to be led by an African-American woman, the first awarded to a researcher at a Historically Black Medical School and the first given to an institution in Georgia.

“We are looking forward to engaging into what we hope will be groundbreaking research that will shift the paradigm for cancer inequity amongst people of African descent and hopefully helping to save lives in the future,” Dr. Davis said in a statement.

The proposal from Team SAMBAI, which stands for Societal, Ancestry, Molecular and Biological Analyses of Inequalities, seeks to understand the complex interactions between genetics, environment and social factors in cancer outcomes.

It also focuses on breast cancer and the value of patient partnership, advocacy and support in tackling the disparities present.

“We are so incredibly proud of Dr. Davis’ leadership in directing the effort to create a truly historic and precedent setting winning proposal to Cancer Grand Challenges that

holds the potential to have a tremendous impact on how we treat cancer for people with African ancestry,” said MSM President and CEO Valerie Montgomery Rice.

More information on Team SAMBAI, its members and their work can be found at

www.cancergrandchallenges.org.