The Moffitt Cancer Center has received a $10.2 million grant for lung cancer research.
The grant came from the National Cancer Institute to support the research of Moffitt’s Lung Cancer Metabolism Working Group. The group is working on four projects to develop new kinds of lung cancer therapies.
The research can also improve existing lung cancer therapies like radiation, surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, according to Eric Haura, director of the Lung Cancer Center of Excellence and co-principal investigator of the grant.
“We see about 1,800 new lung cancer patients each year in our thoracic clinic. We are seeing what works and what doesn’t,” Haura said.
“We know improvements can be made to appropriately apply standard of care treatments and even develop new, more targeted therapies, but first we need to further our understanding of the basic biology of lung cancer disease progression. These four projects will help our team do just that.”
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths across the globe with 1.8 million deaths in 2020, according to the World Health Organization.
Based in Tampa, Moffitt is one of only 51 centers to be designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.