UCLA researchers ’ efforts to combat melanoma gets $13M boost from NIH

UCLA researchers have received a $13 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to find new ways to overcome melanoma resistance to some of the most promising targeted therapies and immunotherapies.There have been significant advancements in the past decade using targeted therapies and immunotherapies for treating people withadvanced forms of this deadliest type of skin cancer, but the treatments still only work in some people. Tumors can — and oftendo— become resistant to these drugs.“While these therapies have transformed the way people with melanoma are treated, only about 40% to 50% of people respond to the therapies, and that is not good enough, ” said Dr. Antoni Ribas, one of the principal investigators on the grant, who is a professor of medicine at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and director of the Tumor Immunology Program at theUCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.To further improve the response rate, identifying mechanisms that determine how tumors can become resistant to these therapies and understanding how to identify patients who will and will not respond tothem is critical to developing new and improved treatments.While melanoma is relatively rare — it accounts for only 1% of all skin cancer cases — rates of melanoma have been rising rapidly over the past few decades, and it is responsible for the vast majority of skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. An estimated 100,000 new cases of melanoma will b...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news