Mark Muzi awarded first NCI Research Specialist Award

Congratulations to Mark Muzi, recipient of the first NCI Research Specialist (Core-based Scientist) Award (R50). The R50 award provides more than $1.2 million in funding over five years. The Research Specialist Award is designed to encourage the development of stable research career opportunities for exceptional scientists who want to continue to pursue research within the context of an existing NCI-funded basic, translational, clinical or population science cancer research program, but not serve as independent investigators. These scientists, such as researchers within a core/shared resource/central scientific support, are vital to sustaining the biomedical research enterprise. The Research Specialist Award is intended to provide salary support and sufficient autonomy so that individuals are not solely dependent on NCI grants held by others for career continuity. Mark Muzi has outstanding credentials for this award based on his data analysis activities. He was part of the PET Cancer P01 led by Kenneth Krohn since 1988. Mark has built an impressive bibliography and is frequently invited to lecture at Society of Nuclear Medicine and World Molecular Imaging Congress meetings and at each of the semi-annual ECOG-ACRIN meetings. He is on several review panels for these organizations which has led to his being invited to share his expertise in data analysis and modeling with investigators at other universities. Mark has most recently been involved with NCI-funded grants led by Paul Kinahan.