This K24 award is being sought to support the efforts of the principal investigator, Dr. James Goydos, as he builds his clinical and translational research program. He is the Director of the Melanoma and Soft Tissue Oncology Program at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey. He is the sole funded clinical researcher in the Department of Surgery at our Institution and he carries a large clinical burden in support of our large Melanoma Program. A K24 award will allow our Institution to hire a new junior Surgical Oncologist to join Dr. Goydos'program to relieve much of his clinical duties so that he can concentrate on Patient Oriented Research and mentoring our junior faculty. Dr. Goydos has a robust clinical research program that is translating the findings in our basic science laboratories into clinical practice. He has just completed accrual to a phase 0 trial of the glutamate signaling pathway inhibiting compound Riluzole in patients with resectable stage III and IV melanoma and the results are very encouraging. Dr. Goydos plans to expand this research with a phase II trial of Riluzole in patients with stage IV melanoma and he is planning future trials with combination therapies and in the adjuvant setting. Dr. Goydos will be supporting his research with an ongoing R21 Quick Trial that supports the phase II trial. He is also developing a R01 level clinical project that will be part of a P01 application that is scheduled for submission in the Winter of 2009. Dr. Goydos currently acts as the primary mentor for one junior faculty member in the Division of Surgical Oncology (Dr. Jonathan Lee) and will be taking on three other junior faculty members as mentees if he obtains this award. He will also be involved in developing a clinical and translational research curriculum for the Department of Surgery.