NYU Langone Medical Center awarded NIH grants totaling ...( New York NY June 24 2009 Two NYU La...)

New York, NY, June 24, 2009 Two NYU Langone Medical Center researchers have received $1,560,000 in grant support for their first year of studies focused on microbiome and psoriasis and on microbiome and esophageal cancer from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The studies being conducted at NYU Langone Medical Center are two of several projects being conducted through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research as part of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) taking place at institutions across the country.

Since 2007, the HMP has awarded more than $70 million to expand its exploration of how the trillions of microscopic organisms that live in and on our bodies affect our health. The human microbiome is all the microorganisms that reside in or on the human body, as well as all their DNA, or genomes.

In the new round of funding, the HPM will support pilot demonstration projects by researchers that will sample the microbiomes of healthy volunteers and volunteers with specific diseases over the next year. As part of that funding, Martin J. Blaser, MD, the Frederick H. King Professor of Internal Medicine, chair of the Department of Medicine, and professor of microbiology, will receive support for his study titled "Evaluation of the Cutaneous Microbiome in Psoriasis." Psoriasis, affecting more than 7.5 million people in the United States, is a chronic disease involving the immune system that appears on the skin, usually in the form of thick, red, scaly patches, and its cause is unknown. The goal of this study is to assess whether changes in the skin microbiome may contribute to psoriasis.

Additionally, Zhiheng Pei, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and medicine, will receive a grant to support his study on microbiome and esophageal cancer. Dr. Pei's work focuses on the type of cancer linked to heartburn due to gastroesophageal reflux diseases, the fastest rising malignancy in the United States. The recent increases in this canc
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