Contact:
James W. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Chief, Technology Development Branch
Cancer Diagnosis Program, DCTD, NCI
Phone: 301-402-4185
e-mail: jacobsoj@mail.nih.gov
Objective of Project:
The objective of this initiative is to explore how the information derived from comprehensive molecular analyses can be used to impact cancer patient care and ultimately, outcomes for cancer patients. This initiative will support projects that bridge the gap between discovery of molecular profiles and their evaluation in prospective clinical trials and ultimate integration into clinical practice. The projects will confirm and refine molecular profiles, which have already been shown to correlate with an important clinical parameter, in order to demonstrate that the profiles potentially are clinically useful. The projects will define critical elements in the molecular profiles and develop robust methodologies for measuring those elements in patient specimens. The assays will be used to test hypotheses related to clinical decisions.
Description of Project:
Cooperative agreements will support multi-disciplinary and/or multi-institutional projects involving investigators with expertise in technology development and application, cancer biology, oncology, pathology, clinical cancer research, biostatistics, bioinformatics and, possibly, biomedical imaging. Applicants will be asked to propose well designed, statistically justified projects evaluating molecular profiles that have been correlated with clinical outcomes in a specific cancer or a closely related set of cancers. The clinical questions of interest cover all aspects of patient management from the time of initial diagnosis through therapeutic intervention and monitoring of response to therapy. This initiative does not include issues associated with early detection of cancer in asymptomatic or high-risk populations or pre-malignant lesions. Applicants are expected to develop collaborations to bring together the required expertise and to ensure access to appropriate patients or patient specimens. Funded applicants will be expected to work collaboratively with other funded investigators and NCI staff to address issues and problems common to all of projects such as analytical strategies, access to additional specimen resources and data analysis and data management.