University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute researcher Dr. Patrick Moore has received a $2 million grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health to continue researching a virus that causes a rare and highly aggressive form of skin cancer.
Pitt researchers discovered the virus in 2008, a finding made possible by a NIH grant that expires March 31. The new grant will fund research at Pitt through March 2019.
“Our initial grant was highly successful and led to new methods to diagnose and treat Merkel cell carcinoma,” Moore said in a prepared statement. “We believe that these findings can help us to uncover new causes of other cancers, which may speed development and testing of new cancer therapies.”