The University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center
(UWCCC) is an administrative unit of the School of Medicine and Public
Health on the UW-Madison campus; however, it serves the entire University
cancer research community. The UWCCC represents the consolidated entities
of the McArdle Laboratory and the original University of Wisconsin Clinical
Cancer Center, both of which were NCI funded cancer centers since 1946
and 1973 respectively. The organizational structure of the UWCCC optimizes
the Center’s ability to function as a matrix leader for cancer
research within one of the nation’s outstanding research universities.
At present, UW-Madison ranks third among all U.S. public universities
in research expenditures. Cancer research has played a prominent role
in the scientific endeavors of the University of Wisconsin. Included
among the long list of accomplishments are the discovery and application
of 5-fluorouracil, early clinical investigation of tamoxifen, the discovery
of the metabolic activation of chemical carcinogens, and Howard Temin’s
Noble Prize winning work on retroviruses and reverse transcriptase.
The UWCCC is organized around nine scientific programs:
Genetics, Etiology and Prevention, Experimental Therapeutics, Cell Signaling,
Virology, Cancer Control, Radiation and Imaging Sciences, Immunology,
and Aging and Cancer. To promote inter-programmatic collaborations, the
UWCCC draws upon members of the scientific programs to participate in
fourteen multidisciplinary disease-oriented working groups that focus
on particular cancers. There are 250 members of the UWCCC who continue
a strong and deep program in cancer research. In FY 2005, UWCCC members
were awarded more than $116 million direct costs for research awards,
including $31 million from NCI and $63 million from other NIH peer reviewed
awards. In total, investigators received more than $98 million direct
costs in peer reviewed research funding.
The UWCCC has established the following strategic priorities:
- To pursue outstanding research programs directed toward
understanding the causes and biology of cancer
and the factors that regulate normal and neoplastic
growth and differentiation.
- To pursue outstanding research programs directed at
the identification of cancer risks in the population
and the behavioral factors that require modification
and public health policy adjustments.
- To pursue outstanding research programs directed at
the development of new methods of prevention,
detection, diagnosis and treatment, and to translate these discoveries
to patients and to medical practice.
- To provide training of the highest quality in basic
cancer research and clinical cancer care at the
graduate and postdoctoral levels.
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