The Melanoma and Cutaneous Malignancies Program is a multidisciplinary Research Program that has been supported by the NCI CCSG since 1978. It provides the organizational structure and research forum for the efficient conduct of collaborative basic, clinical, and epidemiologic research in melanoma, basal and squamous cell carcinoma, and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Lynn Schuchter, MD has been Program Leader since 2007, after being an active member since 1989. John Seykora, MD, PhD was appointed Co-Leader in 2014 given the expansion of the Program into non-melanoma skin cancers. Members have a high degree of collaboration with other Research Programs and extramural investigators. The primary goal of the Program is to improve survival and quality of life for patients with melanoma, non-melanoma skin cancers and CTCL through basic, translational, and clinical epidemiological research. Three highly translational thematic areas of scientific focus include: epidemiology and risk assessment; the biology of cutaneous malignancies; and experimental therapeutics, including both targeted and immunotherapeutic approaches. The cohesiveness of the Program is maintained through several collaborative mechanisms (monthly research meetings, weekly tumor boards, monthly research in progress meetings, a yearly retreat sponsored by the Cancer Center) and NCI-funded multi-investigator research grants. The Program's 26 members are drawn from 11 departments from Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and two departments from The Wistar Institute. Critically important resources have been developed by Program members, and are supported by the Cancer Center, which have fostered the highly productive, translational research that distinguishes this Program. The resources include a comprehensive melanoma database; a melanoma pathology archive, from which investigators can access annotated pathology slides and blocks (normal skin and lesions) of patients seen as far back as 30 years ago; and a large biorepository of thousands of collected blood and tumor samples from patients with cutaneous lymphoma. During the project period, the Program has been remarkably productive with numerous investigator-initiated clinical trials and publications in high impact journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cell, and Journal of Clinical Investigation. The success of these efforts is reflected in the award of an NCI Skin Cancer SPORE and additional grants in laboratory-based translational and population science research, including two NCI P01 grants to support innovative clinical/translational research. In total, members have $4.1M in research funding (annual direct costs) of which $2.3M is peer- reviewed and $1.5 is from the NCI. During the project period, members published 373 cancer-related publications, of which 22% were intra-Programmatic, 30% were inter-Programmatic and 58% were multi- institutional.
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