During a Feb. 18 meeting of the National Cancer Advisory Board's (NCAB's) Subcommittee on Cancer Centers, National Cancer Institute (NCI) officials presented a status report on Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) issues, including draft revisions to the CCSG guidelines. The report follows recommendations for improving the award mechanisms that fund NCI-designated cancer centers (P30 grants) and Specialized Programs of Research Excellence, or SPOREs, (P50 grants) developed by a subcommittee ad hoc working group. Dr. Karen Antman, on an intergovernmental personnel appointment to assist NCI in implementing the working group's recommendations, and Dr. Linda Weiss, chief of the NCI Cancer Centers Branch, gave the report.

As recommended, several operational changes are in the works to increase center leaders' involvement in strategic planning. The working group also recommended that cancer centers be used for piloting new research and dissemination programs, something that Dr. Antman stressed is already underway. More than 50 cancer centers, for example, are participating in the development of the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) initiative, and many others have received U54 awards to form partnerships with institutions that serve a large minority population. In 2003, nearly $21 million in awards were made to cancer centers for innovative programs like these, she said.  Read more  

Epidemiology has been depicted as a scientific approach that moves slowly, but with great force. However, by incorporating the powerful new tools being generated by recent advances in genomics and molecular sciences, epidemiology has an unparalleled opportunity to move more quickly and with greater force than ever. To foster this approach, NCI has designated "molecular epidemiology" as a strategic priority area to meet the director's 2015 challenge goal. Poised to accelerate knowledge about the genetic and environmental components of cancer induction and progression, it will also help identify new preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic interventions.

An integral feature of this initiative is the planning and development of strategic partnerships that link epidemiologists with one another and with genomicists and other investigators from the clinical, basic, and population sciences. This transdisciplinary team-based approach responds to a growing consensus in the scientific community that the full potential of genomic and other emerging technologies will require large-scale epidemiologic studies.  Read more  

This NCI Cancer Bulletin is produced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). NCI, which was established in 1937, leads a national effort to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer. Through basic and clinical biomedical research and training, NCI conducts and supports research that will lead to a future in which we can prevent cancer before it starts, identify cancers that do develop at the earliest stage, eliminate cancers through innovative treatment interventions, and biologically control those cancers that we cannot eliminate so they become manageable, chronic diseases. For more information on cancer, call 1-800-4-CANCER or visit http://www.cancer.gov. NCI Cancer Bulletin staff can be reached at ncicancerbulletin@mail.nih.gov.