CAREER ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM: PROJECT SUMMARY The Career Enhancement Program (CEP) of the Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer will develop a new cadre of investigative cutaneous oncologists and scientists committed to multidisciplinary studies investigating the relevance of biological discoveries in human skin cancer risk, prevention, diagnosis, prognosis or treatment, and enhance the careers of individuals who are already productively investigating this field. $50,000 per year is requested to support CEP awards, which will be matched with $100,000/year from the Yale Cancer Center (of their annual $300,000 commitment), to be used for the support of 2-3 faculty-level CEP Awards per year. Funding is for one year, but may be renewed for a second year. Potential candidates for these awards include promising junior faculty who are either appointed at Yale or are outside candidates or new recruits for Yale appointment. Alternatively, candidates may be established investigators, either currently at Yale or in the process of being recruited to Yale, with previous research focus in other arenas, but who will re-channel a significant portion of their focus to translational research in cutaneous oncology. All junior faculty awardees are paired with an established investigator in translational cutaneous oncology with a documented record of successful mentoring. During the third five-year funding cycle, YSPORE CEP funds were used to support the career development of twelve different investigators including six women, one Black/African American, one Hispanic or Latino and one individual from a disadvantaged background. Individuals supported to date have had diverse backgrounds and previous experience; 4 PhDs, 3 MDs, and 5 MD/PhDs. They include multiple investigators steered towards cutaneous oncology resesarch with CEP support and junior clinician-scientists enabled to pursue translational and preclinical cutaneous oncology research.