Duke Team Receives $10.8 Million From NIH

The National Cancer Institute (NIH) awarded $10.8 million to Duke Cancer Institute researchers as part of the Human Tumor Atlas Network, which will work to build a visual model of cancer tumors.

The Duke team, led by Shelley Hwang, MD, and Jeffrey R. Marks, PhD, will develop a three-dimensional molecular characterization of pre-cancerous growths in the breast to better understand how breast cancers develop. Co-principal investigators are from Stanford and Arizona State universities.

“We are excited about the opportunity to build on all the preliminary work that we have been doing to better understand ductal carcinoma in situ and other precancers,” Hwang said.

The Human Tumor Atlas Network is a national effort to construct high-resolution, multidimensional atlases of cancer tumors over time, describing the molecular, cellular and physiological events that occur during early stages of cancer development, progression and metastasis.