# Translating Molecular and Clinical Data to Biomarker-Informed Screening Pathway

> **NIH NIH U19** · UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HEALTH SCIS CTR · 2024 · $761,567

## Abstract

Project Summary
Lung cancer remains to be a global public health priority. While low-dose computed tomography (LDCT)
screening was shown to reduce lung cancer mortality by 20-30%, there remain to be unresolved
challenges issues such as optimizing intervals for LDCT screening and how best to increase LDCT
screening uptake and adherence. In addition, it has been shown previously that lung cancer risks for
African Americans are higher than for Whites when having the same level of smoking exposure, while
uptake of LDCT screening among African Americans has been one of the lowest. Moreover, the
proportion of lung cancer among never smokers continues to rise across the world, particularly among
Asians where over 50% of lung cancers are diagnosed among never smokers. None of these emerging
issues are addressed under the recently expanded US Preventative Service Task Force criteria.
The overall objective of this project is to establish a biomarker-informed LDCT screening pathway to
maximize screening efficiency and benefit-harm ratio while accounting for racial disparity. Our research
team is in the unique position to conduct this much-needed work as we have already established
extensive resources for the data elements needed being the lead investigators of the major CT
screening programs in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia along with international lung cancer consortia.
Specifically, we will (i) Establish a biomarker-informed LDCT screening pathway accounting for
racial disparity using data and samples from 3 ongoing LDCT screening programs in North America,
with a total of 3500 participants and oversampling African Americans; (ii) Identify circulating
biomarkers that predict lung cancer risk and differentiate nodule malignancy in Asian never
smokers, using data and samples from the Taiwan Lung Cancer Screening for Never Smoker Trial
(TALENT) with 12,011 high-risk Asian never smokers and 311 lung cancer cases detected by LDCT
screening; (iii) Assess the prognostic values of biomarkers for lung cancer mortality based on
multi-omics approaches using data and samples from 6 LDCT screening studies from US, Canada,
Europe and Asia with a total of 1267 lung cancer cases.
The results from this Project will shift the paradigm of what is considered an optimal CT screening
pathway and address the need of under-represented populations and potential over-diagnosis by
investigating mortality. It will provide necessary information toward the implementation of individual risk-
profile based screening strategies that will increase efficiency, improve patient management, and reduce
lung cancer mortality in an ethnically diverse population.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11295081
- **Project number:** 7U19CA203654-09
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HEALTH SCIS CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Rayjean J. Hung
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $761,567
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 2017-08-01 → 2029-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11295081

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11295081, Translating Molecular and Clinical Data to Biomarker-Informed Screening Pathway (7U19CA203654-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11295081. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*