Contact:
Cheryl L. Marks, Ph.D.
Cancer Genetics Branch
Division of Cancer Biology
Telephone: (301)) 435-5226
E-Mail: cm74v@nih.gov

Objective of Project:
This initiative will create a consortium of scientific teams dedicated to the collaborative development, characterization, and validation of mouse models that are analogs of human cancers. The consortium will enable each individual team to pursue its most innovative ideas and experimental approaches and to interact with the other teams within the consortium to foster the rapid exchange of ideas, information, and technology. These activities will be stimulated and facilitated by interactions with the NCI, and enhanced by linkages to key research communities when augmentation of the scientific and technical expertise of the consortium is warranted. The consortium and the NCI will work together to implement workshops and symposia, to provide information about the models and related technology, and to plan for distribution of the validated mouse models to the cancer research community.

Description of the Project:
The Mouse Models of Human Cancers Subgroup of the NCI Preclinical Models for Cancer Working Group identified several key impediments to mouse model development that slow progress in this vital area of cancer research. In particular, the Subgroup cited the lack of stable support for the early phases of model building and characterization, for developing the state-of-the-art technologies that will advance the field, and for validating which mouse models are appropriate for biological discovery and for testing innovative treatment, prevention, or detection strategies. Through this initiative, the NCI will support a cooperative group of research teams who are the best qualified to design and engineer mouse models, to characterize the models fully, and to validate their uses for the many aspects of cancer research.