Background
The UNMC Eppley Cancer Center is the only NCI-designated Cancer Center in Nebraska. The Eppley Institute was established in 1960 as part of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine with funds from the Eugene C. Eppley Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the University of Nebraska. In 1983, NCI awarded the Institute a Cancer Center Support Grant that has been continually funded since then. In 1999, Dr. Kenneth H. Cowan was named director of the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases and of the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center. Shortly thereafter, the Center was designated an NCI Clinical Cancer Center. Since then, the Cancer Center has conducted almost 400 clinical trials for leukemia and lymphoma, as well as breast, prostate, pancreatic, gastrointestinal, and lung cancers.

Patient/Clinical Care
In the multidisciplinary Peggy D. Cowdery Patient Care Center, part of the Lied Transplant Center, cancer patients are treated by surgical, medical, and radiation oncologists, as well as by supportive care specialists such as genetic counselors, nutritionists, and social workers. At the Lied Transplant Center, patients with cancer and other diseases requiring transplantation benefit from revolutionary treatment strategies in a comfortable, home-like setting. Cooperative Care, a new model of care delivery, enables family members to stay and participate as partners in a patient's care.

Research
The UNMC Eppley Cancer Center is renowned for its basic research programs in chemical carcinogenesis; molecular, cellular, and structural biology; and translational research in new therapies. Research programs focus on cancer genes and molecular regulation, molecular and biochemical etiology, experimental therapeutics, and disease-oriented working groups.

Other Notable Programs
The UNMC Eppley Cancer Center has received funding from NCI to conduct a vaccine clinical trial designed to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence following initial treatment, and has received federal funding to establish a Center of Excellence for research in the prevention of breast cancer. In addition, the Center's Nebraska Early Detection and Informatics Technology project is poised to become the first statewide lung-cancer screening program in the United States.

Physicians at the Center have developed a unique protocol using high-dose radiation and chemotherapy to treat patients with advanced prostate cancer. Center researchers have also received $4.2 million from NCI to develop a blood test for early detection of pancreatic cancer and to develop an international Web-based pancreatic cancer registry. As a nationally known program of excellence in leukemia and lymphoma and 1 of only 14 NCI-funded Centers of Excellence in bone marrow transplantation, the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center has received an $8.5 million grant from NCI to study the molecular characteristics of lymphoma.