Philadelphia --The Wistar Institute has been awarded a $6.6 million five-year program project grant by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for research on metastatic melanoma. This is the 20th consecutive year Wistar has received an NCI program project grant for this research, directed by Wistar biologist, Meenhard Herlyn, D.V.M.
Wistar's melanoma research program is one of the largest in the U.S. It connects studies in basic molecular biology with clinical applications, particularly in the areas of melanoma diagnosis and treatment. The current project has two goals. One is to develop new tools to improve the diagnosis of melanoma. The second is to devise new treatments, including vaccines and angiogenesis inhibitors. During the course of this five-year grant, the Wistar scientists expect to begin clinical trials on new treatments for metastatic melanoma.
Every ten years, the incidence of melanoma doubles. This year, it is expected that approximately 44,000 new cases will be diagnosed and 7,400 people will die from the disease. By the year 2000, it is projected that one in every 75 Americans will develop melanoma during their lifetime. Though early diagnosis can improve a patient's prognosis, great strides must still be made in the development of effective treatments.
Although there is strong evidence to suggest that intermittent high sun exposure causes melanoma, little is known about the underlying molecular events that contribute to its development and progression. Scientists expect that mutated, deleted and amplified genes are at least in part responsible. By understanding the etiology, or cause(s), of melanoma, scientists hope to devise strategies for better predicting the outcome of disease, and to design more effective treatments.
Three of the four current program leaders have been involved in Wistar's melanoma research project since its inception: Dr. Meenhard Herlyn, who is the project's principal investigator; Wistar immunologist, Dorothee Herlyn, D.V.M.; and University of Pennsylvania pathologist, David Elder, M.D., Ch.B. The fourth program leader, Wistar molecular biologist, Thanos Halazonetis, D.D.S., Ph.D., joined more recently.
Two Wistar core facilities are also involved, providing the program with state-of- the-art technologies for advanced research: the biochemistry core, directed by Dr. David Speicher; and the genomics core, established by Dr. Harold Riethman.
The Wistar melanoma program was begun by Hilary Koprowski, M.D., the Institute's former director, and Wallace Clark, M.D., the world-renowned skin pathologist who developed the first widely used method for assessment of melanoma. Wistar's current research project is dedicated to Dr. Clark, who died in 1997.
The Wistar Institute, established in 1892, was the first independent medical research facility in the country. For more than 100 years, Wistar scientists have been making history and improving world health through their development of vaccines for diseases that include rabies, German measles, infantile gastroenteritis (rotavirus), and cytomegalovirus; discovery of molecules like interleukin-12, which are helping the immune system fight bacteria, parasites, viruses and cancer; and location of genes that contribute to the development of diseases like breast, lung and prostate cancer. Wistar is a National Cancer Institute Cancer Center.