Paul Nghiem wins Research Scholar Grant from American Cancer Society

Dr. Paul Nghiem, of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance's Medical Director's Office, will receive what may be the largest research grant to date on a deadly, yet rarely studied form of skin cancer. The four-year, $840,000 Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society will support Nghiem's project: "Merkel Cell Carcinoma: Defining Key Genetic and Prognostic Factors."

Nghiem, a principal investigator at the University of Washington, will use data from more than 6,000 patients diagnosed with Merkel cell carcinoma to develop a staging system to better define prognosis and standardize clinical trials as his laboratory studies specific genes involved in the disease.

Nghiem will receive his grant at a presentation arranged by the American Cancer Society Great West Division.

Since its inception in 1946, the American Cancer Society's Research and Training Program has funded 42 Nobel Prize laureates and invested more than $3.2 billion in cancer research, much of that focusing on the work of promising new investigators.