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Cancer as a Model for Studying Disease Due to the complexity of cancer - which includes abnormal growth, evasion of normal cell death, tissue
invasion, and metastasis - cancer research serves as a model for advances in our understanding of all
human diseases. In fact, the nation's investment in cancer research has affected the diagnosis and
treatment of most major diseases.
- Cancer is the only disease for which tissue is routinely collected for study in the laboratory. Having
malignant, pre-malignant, and normal tissue from the same patient allows researchers in many fields
to understand the biology and pathology of disease processes at a cellular level.
- Our increased understanding of how tumors develop blood vessels to survive, coupled with the
development of drugs to intervene in that process, led to new approaches to treating macular
degeneration, a leading cause of blindness, diabetes, and heart disease.
- Sampling tissues at varying stages of tumor growth, which is another hallmark of cancer research
and treatment, has allowed scientists to better understand other diseases, including heart disease
and Alzheimer's disease.
- We know that a number of tumors result directly from infection - viral or bacterial. Our progress in
understanding the causes of these tumors and their treatment is directly linked to NCI's long history
as a leader in immunology, vaccine development, and AIDS research.
Cancer is not only a model of disease in the laboratory setting. NCI's investments in behavioral science,
population research, and communication and education also bring important knowledge to all of health
care. The complex nature of cancer, from prevention to detection and treatment, provides a model for
the delivery of quality health care in the community:
- NCI's use of interdisciplinary clinical care teams to provide comprehensive, patient-centered care is
an approach with benefits that extend beyond cancer.
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The NCI Community Cancer Centers Program, a national network of community cancer centers that
link with NCI to expand cancer research and deliver the latest, most advanced cancer care to
patients in their communities, is a model for community-based research and delivery of service
- NCI's Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG™) serves as a catalyst for the rest of the healthcare
community to more fully leverage the power of modern information technologies to healthcare.
caBIG creates a World Wide Web for cancer research, connecting cancer researchers, physicians,
and patients so they can share data and knowledge, thus speeding research discovers and improving
patient outcomes.
- The ability to analyze cancer tissue from a patient makes cancer patients the most highly
characterized population of patients with chronic disease. Physicians are now using these data to
inform prevention and treatment schemes tailored to the individual. The NCI recognizes that
tailoring treatment for individuals is the model for future healthcare delivery. We are continually
studying ways to optimize this approach.
NCI has a variety of programs that translate basic cancer research into clinical trials for cancer patients.
This infrastructure also serves as a model for conducting clinical trials.
- The NCI Cancer Center Program supports 64 NCI-designated cancer centers nationwide that are
actively engaged in transdisciplinary research to reduce the burden of cancer. The centers are not
only a major source of discovery about the nature of cancer but also deliver medical advances to
cancer patients through clinical trials. These centers are a model for the translation of basic cancer
research into improved outcomes for patients.
- NCI's Cooperative Group Program involves more than 1,700 institutes that place more than 22,000
new patients into cancer treatment trials each year.
- NCI's Experimental Therapeutics (NExT) program is expanding our ability to collaborate with industry
partners in improving drug development. The program aims to use very small human trials to
shorten the time needed to move the most promising investigational agents into full-fledged human
clinical trials. Our goal is to reduce the typical 10- to 12-year drug-development cycle by up to 3-4 years.
- As the world's largest hospital dedicated to clinical research, the NIH Clinical Center serves as a
unique environment for molecular epidemiology studies and genomic research to identify and
validate genetic pathways and molecular targets that can lead to new approaches to cancer
prevention, diagnosis, detection, and treatment. NCI is committed to making the NIH Clinical Center
a resource for the external research community, launching an important early-phase clinical trials for
an aggressive form of a rare cancer, hereditary medullary thyroid cancer in July 2007. This trial is
being conducted under the joint leadership of an NIH clinical investigator and a scientist from an
academic medical institution.
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