University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center

The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMGCCC) is nationally recognized for its excellence in patient care and for its multidisciplinary translational research program. The center was selected as an NCI-Designated Cancer Center in 2008 and was elevated to a comprehensive cancer center in 2016.

UMGCCC’s mission is to undertake innovative basic, clinical, population, and prevention research that will impact the understanding and treatment of cancer around the world and to provide state-of-the-art clinical care to patients with cancer in Maryland and beyond.

Located in Baltimore, MD, the center is a joint entity of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center. Its investigators collaborate with researchers from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and other campuses of the University System of Maryland.

UMGCCC serves as the academic flagship for the University of Maryland Cancer Network, partnering with regional cancer centers throughout the 13-hospital University of Maryland Medical System. The cancer center’s community outreach and engagement efforts are far reaching and broad, with a focus on the city of Baltimore and 10 surrounding counties. Globally, UMGCCC maintains an active research program in Nigeria.

Research at UMGCCC

UMGCCC has an active translational research program, which spans multiple disciplines, with more than 200 physicians and scientists working together to develop new technologies, novel cancer-fighting agents, and promising combination therapies to bring the latest cancer treatments directly to patients.

The center also focuses on addressing cancer disparities and improving access to care and treatment outcomes for minorities, who represent about 65% of the participants in the center’s clinical trials.

UMGCCC-led research has resulted in the development of aromatase inhibitors to treat breast cancer; the invention of the GammaPod, a targeted radiation treatment for early-stage breast cancer that can reduce the number of treatments; and development of numerous promising new drug compounds and immunotherapies, such as a next-generation CAR T-cell therapy.

Select Scientific Initiatives at UMGCCC

UMGCCC is a national leader in many areas of cancer research, with comprehensive programs in experimental therapeutics for hormone-related cancers, molecular and structural biology, population science, and tumor immunology and immunotherapy. Cutting-edge research underway at the cancer center includes:

• A first-of-its-kind clinical trial in the United States using focused ultrasound and microbubbles to disrupt the brain’s protective blood‒brain barrier in order to deliver chemotherapy directly to difficult-to-treat brain tumors.
• Development of new approaches to train a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. More than two dozen clinical trials at the center utilize immunotherapy, and UMGCCC’s state-of-the-art cell-processing laboratory, the Fannie Angelos Cellular Therapeutics Laboratory, provides in-house support to advance this research.
• Clinical testing of galeterone, a drug developed at UMGCCC that had shown significant clinical activity against advanced prostate cancer. Based on promising preclinical studies, the drug is being tested in a clinical trial as a potential new treatment for pancreatic cancer.

*This profile provided by the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center.