Cancer Center Director: Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D. 10901 North Torrey Pines Road La Jolla, CA 92037 Tel: (858) 646-3100 Fax: (858) 713-6272 Visit Website

The Burnham Institute for Medical Research was founded as the “La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation” in 1976 and has earned accreditation from the National Cancer Institute as an NCI-designated Cancer Center focusing on basic cancer biology since 1981. The Cancer Center is an interdisciplinary effort, mobilizing ~ 400 scientists, including faculty, postdoctoral fellows, technicians, and graduate students, organized into six collaborative programs, each individually focused on a particular aspect of cancer: Cell Adhesion & Extracellular Matrix Biology, Glycobiology, Oncodevelopmental Biology, Cancer Genetics & Epigenetics, Signal Transduction, and Apoptosis & Cell Death Research.

NCI funding at the Cancer Center supports specialized expertise and high-end technologies organized as "shared resources“, which include: Gene Analysis (automated DNA sequencing, microarray, and quantitative, real-time PCR); Proteomics (HPLC analysis of organic compounds, protein identification, analysis of post-translational modifications); High Throughput Cell Analysis and Chemical Library Screening (biochemical and cell-based assays, high-throughput microscopy, flow cytometry-based cell analysis and cell sorting); Functional Genomics (RNAi-technology and siRNA library screens); Medicinal Chemistry (peptide chemistry, analytical and synthetic organic chemistry); Structural Biology (x-ray crystallography, NMR, and protein expression); Cell Imaging and Histology (light, fluorescent, and electron microscopy, confocal analyses, and laser capture microscopy); Informatics and Data Management; and an AAALAC-accredited Animal Facility.

In its 25 year history, the Cancer Center has produced targeting technologies that deliver anti-cancer drugs specifically into tumors, strategies for tricking cancer cells into committing suicide through restoration of a natural mechanism for cell death, and a number of cancer cell behaviors that can be pre-empted or, in some cases, promoted, as potential cancer drug targets. Chemical biology and drug discovery, a developing focus of the Cancer Center, will be greatly enhanced by the Burnham Institute's establishment of the San Diego Center for Chemical Genomics, funded in 2005 by the National Institutes of Health Roadmap initiative as one of nine national centers for high-throughput screening, known collectively as "The Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network"