Cancer Centers

NCI-supported basic, clinical, and comprehensive Cancer Centers currently represent 55 of the strongest institutions in the Nation dedicated to scientific innovation and excellence; to interdisciplinary research, training, and education; and to coordinated recognition and pursuit of new research opportunities. Cancer Centers are committed to transferring new knowledge to practical clinical and community applications that will reduce cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality and increase the survival and quality of life of cancer patients. These institutions have dynamic, flexible research infrastructures and organizational capabilities that consistently promote and sustain the kinds of collaboration between basic, clinical, and population research scientists that are needed to address the complicated questions associated with cancer causation and progression.

Research activities on the molecular and cellular dynamics of cancer cells, vaccine development, novel approaches to gene therapy, and prevention and control interventions all illustrate the need for such effective collaborative enterprises. Cancer Centers achieve their objectives by providing a framework that stimulates the participation of a broad range of diverse but complementary scientific interests. They provide ready access to the most advanced research technologies and services and assure a close association between state-of-the-art research and state-of-the-art care activities within the institution. Cancer Centers develop key collaborations with industrial, community, and state health organizations and link the research capabilities and expertise of scientists within the institution to problems of cancer incidence and mortality in their communities and regions. With their broad geographic distribution, Cancer Centers are key partners and, in many ways, principal vanguards of the NCI in bringing the benefits of research more directly to local communities and regions of the country.

The National Cancer Institute Cancer Centers Program Map and Listing



A critical role of NCI Cancer Centers is to move laboratory discoveries effectively into patient and population research settings (i.e., translational research), fully exploiting opportunities that are likely to have a more immediate impact on the prevention and cure of human cancers. The many successes of Centers are exemplified by their competitiveness in obtaining support through Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs), which focus exclusively on translational research.

For example, the Breast Cancer SPORE at the Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina is combining molecular, epidemiologic, and public health research approaches designed to reduce breast cancer incidence and mortality in rural African American populations. This is a clear demonstration of how research excellence organized across a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines is directly benefiting a community and region, one of the prime responsibilities of NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

The University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center recently received a prostate cancer SPORE award. This is an excellent example of the ability of a Cancer Center to harness institutional resources to assemble a multidisciplinary team of basic, clinical, and physical scientists dedicated to understanding a major form of human cancer. This new group was recruited over a two-year period and is working to improve the use of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in combination with cytogenetics as a prognostic marker and to explore novel Doppler imaging technologies to move ultrasound diagnosis from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional standard

NEXT SECTION... PREVIOUS SECTION... CONTENTS PAGE...