The National Melanoma Awareness Project began as an expansion of the Joel Myres Melanoma Awareness Project which was initiated in 2003 with a group of UCI medical students interested in teaching local teens about skin cancer. During the 2004-2005 school year, we shared the melanoma prevention message with over 3,500 students in Orange County alone. This year we hope to increase our outreach to over 10,000 local students, and are also launching a poster contest where all students taught are invited to submit posters spreading the melanoma awareness message.

Perhaps more exciting, the Project is rapidly gaining national interest. Its adoption is underway at several other medical schools across the country, and we are actively sharing project materials with all who are interested in joining us.

We are also delighted to anounce our unique partnership with the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, the Children's Hospital of Orange County, and the University of California, Irvine.

The Joel Myres Melanoma Awareness Project is dedicated to the memory of Joel Myres, an incredible young man who passed away during his second year of medical school at UCI in 2001.

The project enables us to teach the community about melanoma while simultaneously educating the medical student volunteers, increasing their propensity to detect melanoma during their future as physicians.