Cancer Nanotechnology Plan (CNPlan)

To help meet the goal to eliminate death and suffering due to cancer, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is engaged in a concerted effort to harness the power of nanotechnology to radically change the way we diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer. Using inputs from clinicians, cancer researchers, and technologists, the NCI has developed the Cancer Nanotechnology Plan (CNPlan) to meet these goals. The CNPlan lays out a pathway and a set of mechanisms to facilitate nanotechnology becoming a fundamental driver of advances in cancer research.

During its development and due diligence of the CNPlan, NCI noted a widespread interest among cancer researchers in overcoming significant obstacles in order to transition nanotechnology to clinical application. These obstacles centered around three common themes:

• Lack of available reference data to compare result from various laboratories.
• Need for "first principles" of understanding about nanomaterials' interactions with biological systems.
• Undefined clinical development pathways for nanomaterials intended for cancer therapeutics and diagnostics.

To address and overcome these barriers, the NCI established the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) at its NCI-Frederick facility. The charter of the NCL is to perform the pre-clinical characterization of nanomaterials and to facilitate the development of nanomaterials intended for clinical use. Focused development and pre-clinical testing of new technologies by the NCL characterization will facilitate entry of these products into clinical trials and this will directly affect the number of new diagnostic and treatment strategies that reach the market, i.e., new drug approval.

NCL resources and activities will be prioritized to influence, inform, and accelerate the research and pre-clinical test phases for drug and device development, as shown in the timeline diagram of Figure 1. The NCL focus on the translational phase offers a supportive method for introducing and evaluating new mechanisms for accelerating test phases, improving and defining methods, and introducing novel nanotechnology strategies into clinical trials.

Download the PDF to learn more about the CNPlan.

  Cancer Nanotechnology Plan
  July 2004
  (file size: 854 kb)