Hollings Horizons Winter/Spring 2026 - Magazine - Page 25
Research News
NCI GRADUATE
STUDENT AWARD
MUSC student earns
prestigious NCI fellowship
for cancer research
The National Cancer Institute awarded graduate student
Thomas Blouin an F31 fellowship, a five-year funding award
that it grants to less than 100 applicants each year.
Under the mentorship of MUSC Hollings Cancer Center
researcher Natalie Saini, Ph.D., Blouin will explore a
deceptively simple question: How can a chemical that does
not seem to change DNA directly still cause cancer?
Blouin and Saini will examine is formaldehyde – a common
chemical we are all exposed to in small amounts.
Despite evidence of a link between formaldehyde and cancer,
researchers have been stumped by a puzzling finding: Lab
experiments often show that formaldehyde does not cause
mutations in DNA, at least not under typical conditions. That
paradox was the motivation for Blouin’s project.
hollingscancercenter.musc.edu
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