Mission and Goals

The mission of the Office of Technology and Industrial Relations is to systematize, integrate, and coordinate the development and application of advanced technologies throughout the NCI-supported research community; to transform basic cancer research and clinical oncology; and to achieve exponential progress against this deadly disease.

The goals of the Office of Technology and Industrial Relations are to:

• Integrate advanced technologies throughout the NCI’s research portfolio and across the NCI-funded comprehensive cancer centers and Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs).
• Maintain a central technology “clearinghouse” that will inform the cancer research community about emerging technologies, and to efficiently match research needs with available tools.
• Identify and catalyze strategic partnerships between research investigators and the private sector, so that research discoveries can advance rapidly towards clinical application.
• Connect traditionally disparate and unconnected disciplines, research sites and life science community sectors into cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary networks that are critical to post-genomic research.
• Develop strategies to address intellectual property issues to facilitate the rapid technology transfer needed for translational medicine.
• Develop and promulgate best practices for technology management, thereby continuously improving milestone-driven performance of the NCI programs designed and overseen by OTIR.