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Woman rubbing sun cream on son's face by lake

Protect and Check the Skin You're In

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States. Each year, more than 2 million people are treated for basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer and more than 68,000 are diagnosed with melanoma. Learn the warning signs of skin cancer and how to lower your risk.

•	NCI Fact Sheet: Common Moles, Dysplastic Nevi, and Risk of Melanoma
•	How to Check Your Skin for Skin Cancer
•	How to Protect Your Skin from Sunlight

Genetic Pattern Linked with Cancer and Aging

Genetic mosaicism (a mixture of normal and mutated cells) appears to increase with age and may raise the risk of cancer, according to NIH researchers and others who compared hundreds of thousands of differences across individual patients’ DNA. Further study is needed across a broader diversity of populations to establish the clinical significance of these findings.

•	NCI press release: chromosomal defects associated with cancer and aging
•	NCI's Division of Epidemiology and Genetics

NCI Approved About 15 Percent of All R01 Research Funding Applications in FY 2011

In the 2011 fiscal year, the National Cancer Institute received 4,477 applications for R01 research grants, 652 of which were successful (about 15 percent). R01 grants are the most common type of NIH research grant. View charts and a table summarizing the overall funding patterns for R01 and R21 (exploratory) grants in various categories of investigators.