OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — With more than $2.1 million in new funding commitments today, the Kansas Bioscience Authority continued to take aim at cancer and osteoporosis, two diseases that not only impact thousands of Kansans each year but are national bioscience challenges.

The KBA board of directors made the following investments:

• The University of Kansas Cancer Center will receive $780,000 over three years upon the successful attraction of Dr. Liang Xu to the cancer center and the university’s Department of Molecular Biosciences. Xu, a University of Michigan Medical Center faculty member, would be designated a KBA rising star scholar in Kansas for his work on molecular cell signaling and nanotechnology.
• The University of Kansas Cancer Center will receive $850,000 over five years upon the successful attraction of Dr. Daotai Nie to the cancer center and the KU School of Medicine’s Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology. Nie, a faculty member at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, would be designated a KBA rising star scholar for his work on molecular mechanisms of cancer cell growth and cancer drug development.
• OsteoGeneX of Kansas City, Kan., will receive $500,000 to support the selection of lead drug candidates for its groundbreaking approach to stopping the advance of osteoporosis and related bone disorders. The company is in the entry phase of international intellectual property protection.

KBA president Tom Thornton said OsteoGeneX has attracted both private capital and federal commercialization funding, and the rising star scholars have earned National Institutes of Health funding that they would bring with them to Kansas.

“These are winning investments because they will be matched by other significant sources of funding and because they are right in line with our strategy of investing in areas of Kansas’ unique bioscience strength,” Thornton said.

The KBA board of directors also has re-elected former Gov. John Carlin as chairman; Ray Smilor, Ph.D., as vice chairman; and Sandra Lawrence as secretary and treasurer. Carlin is a visiting professor and executive-in-residence at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan. Smilor is an executive faculty fellow at Texas Christian University’s Neeley School of Business in Fort Worth, Texas. Lawrence is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics in Kansas City, Mo.