Contact:

Cheryl L. Marks, Ph.D.
Division of Cancer Biology, NCI
Telephone: (301) 594-8778
E-mail: cm74v@nih.gov

Objective of Project:

To maintain the Mouse Models of Human Cancers Consortium (MMHCC), which was initiated by the NCI in September 1999. The intent for the next phase of the Consortium is to foster technologic innovation to derive models that reflect human cancers with increased fidelity; to encourage substantial in-depth characterization of existing and new mouse cancer models for comparison to human diseases; to exploit mouse cancer models for a greater range of translational applications; and to attract additional research disciplines to the Consortium to leverage significant advances in bioinformatics, chemistry, other areas of human research, and systems biology and modeling.

Description of Project:

U01 grants and NIH Intramural Projects will support the continuation of the MMHCC, a cooperative group designed to advance innovation in mouse cancer modeling, credentialing, and translational application. In addition, the MMHCC will continue to collaborate with the NCI to implement and sustain research infrastructure that enables mouse cancer model research and testing, and access to existing models. The NCI anticipates that augmenting the mouse modeling expertise of the MMHCC with a broader base of perspectives in the future will enable the Consortium to design and generate additional mouse cancer models and modeling strategies, employ existing methods and invent new ones to characterize the models more thoroughly for cross-comparisons to human cancer, and substantially expand the repertoire of approaches to apply them to the diverse aspects of human cancer research.