Yale researchers land major NCI grant for skin cancer study

New Haven, Conn.-The National Cancer Institute has given an $11.5 million grant to Yale School of Medicine researchers to determine ways by which to improve risk assessment, measures for diagnosis and prognosis and therapies for patients with basal-cell carcinoma and melanoma.

The Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Skin Cancer grant will support multidisciplinary research to assess environmental and genetic factors in early onset of basal cell carcinoma. The results will be used to help set national guidelines on prevention, modifying behavior and identification of new drug targets. Another expected outcome is the development of an efficient system to assess a patient’s likelihood of responding to therapy.

An expected application is the development of blood or tissue tests for patients undergoing treatment that will monitor the impact of the drug so clinicians can better decide whether to continue with treatment. The studies will also introduce new immunological therapies that break tumor immune tolerance and boost patient immune response to eradicate cancer cells.