The University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center (UPCC) was awarded $26 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) — the largest National Institutes of Health grant ever received by Penn.

The five-year Core Grant is 62 percent larger than last year’s award to the UPCC, which is dedicated to cancer research, control and prevention.

“The Core Grant is the glue that keeps the Cancer Center together,” said its director, John Glick. “It supports shared resources for faculty research, leadership programs, recruitment of new investigators and provides seed money for pilot projects and new faculty research.”

The award comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the 25-year-old UPCC. In 1997, with more than $100 million in cancer research funding, the Center established the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, where top researchers are developing new diagnostic and treatment approaches. And earlier this month, the UPCC established the Rena Rowan Breast Center.