Pennsylvania Department of Health Executive Deputy Secretary Michael Wolf today presented a Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement Program, or CURE, grant to Carnegie Mellon University. The $983,783 grant will be used for a two-year research project focused on cancer treatment technologies.
The CURE program funds health research with the purpose of discovering new scientific knowledge to help improve the health of all Pennsylvanians.
These competitive grants focus on specific research priorities established and reviewed by the Department of Health in conjunction with the Health Research Advisory Committee, a panel made up of universities and research institutes.
The funds, allocated in the 2011-12 fiscal year, focus on projects that translate the information found within the human genome. The grants support research that commercializes and brings to market new, proven cancer diagnostics or therapeutics.
The award was presented to principal investigator, Robert F. Murphy, Ph.D., on behalf of Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with Omnyx, Inc. and the University of Pittsburgh for their project, "Automated Biomarker Identification for Cancer Detection and Prognosis."
The project's purpose is to expand the image analysis capabilities of the Omnyx digital pathology platform and to carry out translational research studies that will improve evaluation of patients.