The laboratory has a long history of collaborations with members of the Penn/Wistar campus. Since its establishment in 1973, the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania has had a Melanoma Program as one of its major research programs. This was initially led by Dr. Wallace Clark, and since 1989 has been led by Dr. DuPont Guerry. The program helps to federate melanoma researchers in part by supporting the Pigmented Lesion Clinic and its database through a Cancer Center Core Support Grant. The Wistar-based existing Program Project on ‘Etiology, Progression and Therapy (CA25874) has been continuously funded since 1980. This Program Project, together with the Abramson Cancer Center's Melanoma Program at the University of Pennsylvania, has functioned beyond traditional boundaries by attracting new investigators to the field, fostering interactions with outside investigators, and coordinating the many related activities that define a Melanoma Research Center (Fig. 2). Since 2001, the SPORE on Skin Cancer (P50CA CA93372) has been active and, starting in 2001. These programs have supported several critically important resources: 1) development of more than 200 cell lines from melanocytic lesions of different stages of progression; 2) MAbs against melanoma-associated antigens; 3) linkage to and ongoing support of a unique clinical and histopathological database of approximately 6,000 melanoma patients; and 4) the Pigmented Lesion Clinic and other clinics in Oncology and Surgery as resources for performance of epidemiologic studies and for the collection of bio-specimens.
