About NCI
Email this pageOur Role in Cancer Research
On this page:The National Cancer Institute's goal is to achieve a future when all cancers are controlled or eliminated by stimulating and supporting scientific discovery and its application. As the leader of the National Cancer Program, we provide vision and leadership to the cancer community. We work to:
- Maintain the discovery enterprise by supporting cancer research across the United States and around the world as well as conducting our own research.
- Translate research discoveries and oversee the development of interventions based on research findings.
- Ensure the delivery of these interventions to all who need them.
D
Scientific Discovery
NCI supports a broad range of research to expand our understanding of cancer at the molecular level, its microenvironment, and how the development, progression, and patient experience of cancer is affected by interactions with other human and environmental factors. These insights provide the foundation for us to develop improvements in prevention, control, early detection and diagnosis, treatment, and post-treatment care.
Each year, almost 5,000 principal investigators lead research projects that result in better ways to combat cancer. These scientists conduct studies at NCI and at nearly 650 universities, hospitals, and other sites in nearly every state in the Nation and in more than 20 foreign countries. Intramural research activities serve as hubs for new development through cutting edge basic, clinical, and epidemiological research. Extramural program experts provide guidance and oversight for research conducted at universities, teaching hospitals, and other organizations. Proposals submitted by extramural investigators are selected for funding by peer review, a rigorous process by which scientific experts evaluate new proposals and recommend the most scientifically meritorious for funding.
Some studies involve basic laboratory research on genomics, proteomics, and molecular interactions. Others help us gain understanding of cancer in specific populations, such as former smokers, to better understand cancer risks related to environmental and lifestyle factors.
In addition to direct research funding, NCI offers the Nation's cancer scientists a variety of useful research tools and services. NCI-supported Cancer Centers and Centers of Research Excellence such as the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Centers and the Centers of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research provide the kind of interdisciplinary environments required for special projects. The Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers are supporting a broad array of studies on nicotine addiction and genetic and environmental factors related to smoking. Research resources such as tissue samples, statistics on cancer incidence and mortality, databases of genetic information, imaging databases, and software for analyzing statistical and genetic data are made available to investigators at little or no cost. Consortia like the Mouse Models of Human Cancer Consortium allow scientists from around the world to share their expertise and resources in creating strains of mice that develop cancers similar to those seen in humans, making widely available an invaluable tool for cancer researchers.
Intervention Development
In addition to promoting integration and the interdisciplinary environment required to support today's cancer scientists, NCI also uses collaborative platforms for translational research and intervention development. Translating basic research into interventions almost inevitably means developing new technologies or transforming those that we have been using. Thus, a new tool that first helps us to understand cancer may eventually be improved and distributed to help us diagnose it, and then may be advanced further still to help us treat it. For example, recent advances in bioinformatics and the related explosion of technology for genomics and proteomics research are dramatically accelerating the rate with which we can process large amounts of information for cancer screening and diagnosis. Likewise, new molecular imaging and biosensing technologies are opening doors to faster, more accurate detection and diagnosis, facilitating more accurate image-guided therapies, and making it possible to monitor treatment outcomes diagnosing, treating, and monitoring cancer.
To ensure that we use public funds to greatest advantage, NCI promotes collaborations that translate scientific understanding to the clinic. The largest such research activity supported by NCI is our Clinical Trials Program for testing cancer treatments, diagnostic tools, and interventions for preventing cancer. With the participation of more than 10,000 medical school and private practice physicians in NCI's Clinical Trials Cooperative Group and Community Clinical Oncology Programs, NCI supports over 1,300 clinical trials a year involving more than 200,000 patients.
In the early 1960s, we began one of our longest running partnerships by establishing the Cancer Centers program. Congress encouraged the expansion of the program to improve the quality of cancer care by bringing cancer scientists and oncologists together in the same setting with patients and their families. Today, two-thirds of the 60 Centers funded by NCI are comprehensive Cancer Centers, so designated because of the breadth and depth of the research conducted by their investigators and their role in public education and outreach.
NCI Centers of Excellence are smaller in scale than NCI Cancer Centers and generally focus on one or a few types of cancer or scientific areas. More than 40 Specialized Programs of Research Excellence bring together groups of scientists with specialized expertise to focus on disease-specific translational research. NCI also brings investigators together for translational research through networks like the Early Detection Research Network, which assembles groups of scientists to identify markers and develop tests to detect early signs of cancer.
Intervention Delivery and Communication
While delivery of most interventions is ultimately the responsibility of healthcare and public health organizations, NCI's role is to ensure that our research findings reach the community and are translated into practices that will make a difference in the lives of people. The results of NCI-supported research consistently provide cancer patients and those who care for them with information, tools, and tests that can be used for improved cancer interventions and can help people make better health choices and treatment options that are more targeted and less invasive and result in fewer adverse side effects. Evidence-based cancer control interventions influence the nature of public health programs to more effectively reduce cancer risk and promote better health practices. For example, once its effectiveness was confirmed in clinical trials, oncologists were quick to adopt the use of tamoxifen in the care of breast cancer patients. Likewise, since studies established the link between diet and cancer risk, more and more of us strive to include five servings of fruits and vegetables in our daily diets.
NCI programs to reduce the disparities in the occurrence of cancer, its treatment, and outcomes among various racial and ethnic groups include research into the causes of health disparities and measures to translate research results into better health for groups at high risk for cancer. For example, NCI-supported investigators are using insurance data to examine the extent to which African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian patients are receiving recommended treatments for colon cancer and other researchers are seeking the causes of disparities among other underserved groups. In addition, NCI is supporting field tests of smoking cessation and weight control programs targeted to the needs of specific racial and ethnic groups.
NCI has partnered with other state and Federal agencies to work on a number of projects aimed at improving the quality of cancer care, such as efforts to raise the rates of colon cancer screening among veterans and the elderly and cervical cancer screening and treatment among lower income populations across the United States.
When NCI-supported research results in discoveries that may lead to new drugs, devices, or diagnostic tests, Federal laws encourage universities and NCI to pursue commercialization by licensing the discoveries to industry. In addition, NCI intramural investigators can also collaborate with industry through arrangements known as Cooperative Research and Development Agreements. It is through such an agreement between NCI and a major pharmaceutical company that investigators are following chronic myelogenous leukemia patients treated with the recently approved anti-cancer agent Gleevec™, to determine its long-term effects.
While major scientific advances typically reach the medical community and the public through medical journals and news reports, NCI proactively disseminates information on new interventions through a range of other cancer communications activities. For example, NCI provides Web-based information on cancer and clinical trials, toll-free telephone service in all regions of the country, and printed brochures and educational packages distributed directly to consumers and through physicians and advocacy organizations. NCI-supported researchers work to create the best methods for reaching all who need to learn about cancer, recent research findings, and opportunities to participate in clinical trials.
We also foster collaborations leading to new interventions through partnerships with other Federal and state agencies charged with roles in improving the Nation's health. For example, the preponderance of data on cancer trends available today have been collected and analyzed through the combined efforts of NCI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state cancer registries. This information is critical to targeting public health interventions as well as informing our fundamental research hypotheses concerning cancer susceptibility and environmental factors. Likewise, partnerships with the Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical companies are accelerating the pace with which we are able to move drugs through the pipeline of discovery, development, and delivery.
NCI Team Includes Advisory Groups
Scientists, medical experts, and advocates work together to help shape NCI's policies and programs through a number of standing and ad hoc advisory groups.
- The National Cancer Advisory Board provides overall guidance for NCI and a final assessment of the research proposals selected for funding through peer review.
- The Board of Scientific Counselors evaluates the progress, performance, and productivity of the Institute's intramural research programs and scientists through regular site visits to NCI.
- The Board of Scientific Advisors plays a similar role for NCI's extramural program, reviewing the progress of ongoing programs and providing feedback on proposed new research activities.
- On a regular basis, NCI convenes Progress Review Groups of scientific and medical experts and advocates to examine the research needs and opportunities for specific types of cancer.
- NCI is also strongly influenced by the President's Cancer Panel. This and other advisory groups provide seasoned assessment of progress and problems in the Nation's effort to reduce the burden of cancer.
In addition to their membership on other NCI advisory groups, advocates advise the NCI Director on broad program and research priorities through the Director's Consumer Liaison Group, an all-consumer advisory committee with members providing advice not only to the Director but to a number of specific program areas such as cancer communications, survivorship, and science planning. NCI also solicits the advice of patients and their family members through the recently created Consumer Advocates in Research and Related Activities (CARRA) program. Through this program, approximately 200 individuals serve as a "ready and waiting" group of people who are available to participate in a wide range of NCI activities. For example, they participate along with basic and clinical researchers in advisory groups to help assess research needs for specific cancers, provide advice on the design of clinical trials, and review education materials we develop.
Consortium Focuses on Developing Cancer Vaccines
Recent advances in genomics and proteomics have enabled the discovery of novel molecular targets that appear well suited to a vaccine approach, and clinical trials have demonstrated that these vaccines can stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells while eliminating or limiting toxicity. The approach has had efficacy in early trials in patients with advanced colorectal cancer, renal cell carcinoma, melanoma, and lymphoma. To speed the development of vaccines and their translation to patient care, NCI's Center for Cancer Research has established a Vaccine Initiative to bring together a consortium of scientists with expertise in oncology, vaccinology, and translational research along with representatives of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Several vaccines developed by consortium members are currently being used in clinical care.
Consortium researchers are also improving the effectiveness of new and existing vaccines by vaccinating with genetically engineered tumor cells to stimulate the immune system, adding genes to the vaccine mixture to produce proteins that are similar to or the same as the target on the cancer cell, and adding molecules to the vaccine mixture that are known to stimulate parts of the immune system.
Also called STI571 or imatinib. Back