By Bruce Schreiner
The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - University of Louisville medical researchers will team up with a Maryland pharmaceuticals company to seek new treatments for lung cancer, a major killer in Kentucky.

Avalon Pharmaceuticals of Germantown, Md., will work with the university's James Graham Brown Cancer Center.

The company, formed in 1999, will offer expertise in using the human genetic code to develop new cancer drugs and therapies, Dr. Donald Miller, director of the Brown Cancer Center, said Thursday.

"They are using their understanding of gene-sequences to screen DNA to look for abnormalities that are consistent in lung cancer and breast cancer," Miller said.

"They identify these consistent abnormalities to develop drugs," he said.

Kentucky has the nation's highest lung cancer rate.

Miller said the partnership eventually could benefit those patients.

"We believe that this has the possibility to develop new treatments that will be more effective," Miller said.

In 2001, lung cancer claimed 3,340 lives in Kentucky, said Menisa Marshall, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association of Kentucky, citing the most recent federal statistics.

Kentucky's death rate from lung cancer was 80.8 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average of 55.2 deaths, she said.

Those statistics aren't surprising given the state's high smoking rate, Marshall said. She applauded the joint research effort.

"Clearly we need to be doing something to get hold of the terrible toll that lung cancer takes on Kentucky," she said.

A third of Kentucky adults are smokers, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is the highest rate in the nation.

The partnership between Avalon and the university also will focus on research into heart disease.

Avalon chief executive Ken Carter predicted the collaboration will "increase our understanding of devastating diseases."

"It's a great match that promises to produce some wonderful results," Carter said in a statement.

The partners have submitted one grant request to the National Cancer Institute and will make a second request to assist research, Miller said.

Miller said the new research also could bolster the university's efforts to get comprehensive cancer center status from the NCI.

"If we're successful at making the science work, this will be a partnership that will go on indefinitely," Miller said.