The largest North American breast cancer prevention trial ever undertaken, the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), nears completion as the 18,000th woman joined the trial late last month. One thousand more women are needed to finish this important trial, which started in 1999 and is being carried out at more than 500 sites in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The 19,000th participant should be enrolled by July, five years after the study began.

STAR results could be ready as early as mid-2006, predict researchers from the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP), the network of investigators conducting the trial, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is funding the study.

"Prompt completion of STAR will be a critical step in our ability to prevent breast cancer in women at increased risk of the disease," said Dr. Leslie Ford, associate director for clinical research in NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention, who oversees STAR.  Read more ¹  



Nanotechnology: Building Cross-Disciplinary Research Teams to Enable Advanced Technologies

Over the past year, NCI has been developing several major strategic advanced technology initiatives - including the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG), proteomics, biomarkers, and nanotechnology - to accelerate progress across the cancer discovery, development, and delivery continuum. Nanotechnology, the science of creating useful materials, devices, and systems by manipulating matter on the nanoscale (a nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter), has the potential to yield new devices that could transform cancer prevention, early detection, imaging, and smart therapeutics. Nanotechnology, and all of these crosscutting "cancer enterprise" programs, will require cross-disciplinary teams to fully integrate and deploy advanced technologies that will ultimately revolutionize discovery, enable development, and reduce the burden of cancer.

Our first two regional Cancer Nanotechnology Symposia were an important step in exploring how to develop teams able to leverage the promise of nanotechnology, and ultimately other advanced technologies, to detect, prevent, and treat cancer. At the symposia, scientists, engineers, chemists, and clinicians from two leading cancer centers exchanged ideas to develop a common understanding of nanotechnology and its potential applications to cancer. The meeting also highlighted problems in cancer research that may benefit from these technologies now and in the future. On March 3 and 4, Dr. Geoffrey Wahl, professor of biology, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Dr. Lee Hartwell, director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, hosted these symposia in La Jolla, Calif. and Seattle, Wash., respectively. We hope these types of meetings will facilitate and optimize the development of the cross-disciplinary, and even cross-sector, teams required to integrate potentially transformational advanced technologies.  Read more ²  

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.