Leading National Cancer Institute (NCI) scientists briefed the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) last week on several innovative collaborations involving NCI-funded extramural researchers and NCI's intramural research program. With cancer research moving toward a more transdisciplinary, team approach, the briefing was an update on how NCI is advancing team science and serving as a venue to discuss expansion of collaboration between the intramural and extramural communities.

In particular, noted Dr. J. Carl Barrett, director of the NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR), NCI leadership is looking to NCAB for guidance on leveraging the unique opportunities offered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinical center.

Several of the collaborations between the NCI intramural and extramural community involve consortia, which can provide the large number of patients and investigational uniformity needed to answer some of the most difficult cancer research questions. The Molecular Neuro-Oncology Consortia, jointly led by NCI and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, for example, has launched the Glioma Molecular Diagnostic Initiative (GMDI). GMDI includes a retrospective study of approximately 300 glioma tumor specimens, and a 1,000- to 1,500-patient prospective study involving collaborative groups and select other institutions funded by the NCI Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program.  Read more  

It is with great hope for the future that I have submitted to Congress The Nation's Investment in Cancer Research (available at http://plan.cancer.gov), NCI's plan and budget proposal for fiscal year 2006. This proposal reflects efforts to acquire and apply the resources and programs to achieve our challenge goal to the nation - to eliminate suffering and death due to cancer by 2015.

Anchored in seven strategic investment areas, this proposal describes next steps for delivering the promise of improved cancer care and public health for all. These strategic areas are: cancer prevention, early detection, and prediction; overcoming cancer health disparities; the strategic development of cancer interventions; an integrated cancer trials system; advanced technologies; integrative cancer biology; and molecular epidemiology.  Read more  

The NCI Cancer Bulletin is produced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). NCI, which was established in 1937, leads the national effort to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer. Through basic, clinical, and population-based biomedical research and training, NCI conducts and supports research that will lead to a future in which we can identify the environmental and genetic causes of cancer, 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.