A report in the Big Island Chronicle, which reports news from the Hawiian Islands, says leading mesothelioma researcher Michele Carbone, MD, PhD, has been selected as the new director of the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii (CRCH). The Center, which is a research unit of the University of Hawaii, is located in downtown Honolulu.

According to the CRCH web site, the Center was originally a part of the Pacific Biomedical Reserach Center before becoming a freestanding independent institute in 1981.

Carbone was selected to head the Center by the university’s Board of Regents, which is comprised of 15 board members, the Chronicle reports. According to the news story, Carbone was elected to a three-year term, and began his new position Sept. 1, 2009. He had previously served as interim director beginning in December 2008 when the Center’s previous director resigned.

According to the Chronicle, Dr. Carbone is “deemed an authority on malignant mesothelioma, a rare cancer related to asbestos exposure. Dr. Carbone and his team have comprehensively studied the impact of genetics, environmental carcinogens and viral infections on mesothelioma development and have subsequently worked to develop preventative and therapeutic treatments.”

An October 2008 story about Carbone published by MidWeek, an Oahu-based publishing company, noted that the physician previously discovered that many people who develop mesothelioma are genetically predisposed to developing the cancer. He and his team conducted extensive studies in Turkey, near the small village of Cappadocia.

Dr. Carbone is the recipient of the 2008-2010 Landon Foundation-AACR (American Association for Cancer Reserach) INNOVATOR Award for International Collaboration in Cancer Reserach for his project, Gene Environment Interaction and Early Detection of Mesothelioma in Cappadocia, Turkey.

Research scientist Haining Yang, MD, PhD, has been selected to receive a two-year, $100,000  grant from the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF) to study the mechanism of how asbestos causes mesothelioma. She hopes the research will aid in the development of effective prevention and therapeutic interventions, according to a report in the Honolulu Advertiser. Yang is a scientist at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, in the Thoracic Oncology Program.

Yang was one of five recipients of the MARF grant, and was selected from among 59 applicants in an international competition. Her research project will include an early detection study of mesothelioma in targeted villages in Turkey that show a high incidence of the disease, the paper reports.

In addition to the MARF grant, Yang will recieve $120,000 from the Hawaii Community Foundation Leahi Fund that will help support her research.

According to the Honolulu Advertiser, people in Hawaii are familiar with mesothelioma because it often affects people who worked in the naval shipyards at Pearl Harbor, as a result of exposure to asbestos used in shipbuilding for years.

The Cancer Research Center of Hawaii is a reserach unit of the University of Hawaii. It was established as a freestanding independent institute in 1981. On July 1, 1996, the Center became a National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated center, and was awarded the Cancer Center Support Grant. The Center is located in Honolulu, Hawaii. Its mission is to “reduce the burden of cancer through research, education, and service with an emphasis on the unique ethnic, cultural and environmental characteristics of Hawaii and the Pacific.”

A story in the Honolulu Advertiser reported today that researchers at the University of Hawaii have made a breakthrough in mesothelioma research. Here is the full text of the story:

“A team of researchers led by Dr. Michele Carbone, director of the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii Thoracic Oncology Program and chair of pathology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, has won the inaugural Landon Foundation-AACR Innovator Award for International Collaboration in Cancer Research.

The team discovered a unique mesothelioma epidemic in three Turkish villages was caused by a genetic predisposition to mineral fiber carcinogenesis. The researchers will apply the $100,000 grant to identifying the predisposing gene or genes for mesothelioma among this cultural group and map the genetic risk factors by genetic linkage studies.

Carbone’s researchers include those from the University of Hawaii, universities on the Mainland and the Hacettepe University School of Medicine in Ankara, Turkey.”

People that I’ve talked to who are affected by mesothelioma often wonder why they have this disease, oftentimes when many of their family members were exposed. They worry that their loved ones might contract this disease, but also puzzle about how it strikes one person out of many exposed similarly.

How exciting that new research may help point out genetic risk factors that could lead to better early screening and detection!