Pitt Joins Head and Neck Cancer Research Collaborative

NIH awarded Pitt a five-year, $11.2 million grant to support a Head and Neck Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in 2022, to promote collaborative, interdisciplinary cancer research, aiming to translate novel scientific discoveries from the laboratory and population studies to the clinic for testing in humans with cancer or at risk for cancer.

The Head and Neck Cancer SPORE, led by Robert L. Ferris, director of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and Heath Skinner, associate professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, builds on years of research, including 15 years of prior funding, that developed an organ-specific database with detailed clinical and pathological information on more than 12,000 patients who were followed for more than 30 years.