A University of Hawaii cancer researcher has received a $100,000 grant for a pilot study of gastrointestinal cancer.

Scott Kuwada, a professor in the Clinical and Translational Research Program at the UH Cancer Center, received the money Friday from the Masami Horio Memorial Fund. Kuwada and collaborators recently discovered that a rare form of cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor occurs far more frequently in Asians than whites in Hawaii and is strongly associated with a Helicobacter pylori infection of the stomach.

The grant will be used to identify risk factors for gastric cancers, which could be used to identify individuals who might benefit from screening, UH said in a release.