NCI Cancer Bulletin for March 15, 2005 (HTML)

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Cancer Center Facts

	Cancer Centers have significant visibility and prestige in the research community, with increased access to funding from NCI and outside sources. This attracts a higher caliber of clinical and research staff, as well as more patients, to the Cancer Centers.

	Excluding trials sponsored by the cooperative groups and the pharmaceutical industry, Cancer Centers reported over 2,700 active clinical trials in FY 2003. These trials, which were designed by investigators within the Cancer Centers, include both early and later phase trials that represent translation of basic laboratory findings in the Center, as well as collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry.

	All eight members of the Cancer Genetics Network are Cancer Centers.

	Three of four grantees recognized as NCI Centers of Excellence in Communications Research are in Cancer Centers.

	More than 50 Cancer Centers are currently piloting caBIG, an informatics infrastructure for sharing tools and data in an open environment with common standards.

	The Cancer Centers Program supports infrastructure for 13,666 basic, clinical, prevention, and population science investigators.

	Nearly half of NCI's extramural funding goes to investigators affiliated with Cancer Centers.

	In FY 2003, the number of patients accrued to all clinical trials at Cancer Centers, including cooperative group and industry-sponsored trials, was 43,650.

	Nearly two-thirds of the research funding that NCI grants through the RO1 mechanism goes to investigators affiliated with Cancer Centers.

	Nine of 10 members of the NCI Small Animal Imaging Resource Program are in Cancer Centers.

	Six of the seven NCI In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Centers are in Cancer Centers.

Map Key

Cancer Center (21)
Cancer Centers have a scientific agenda focused on basic, population, or clinical research, or any two of these three components.

Comprehensive Cancer Center (39)
Comprehensive Cancer Centers integrate research activities across all three major areas: basic, clinical, and population research.

	Fifty-five of the 58 NCI Special Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs) are in Cancer Centers.

	Cancer Center support grants fund 675 shared resources at Cancer Centers, including specialized equipment, facilities, pathology services, tumor procurement, tissue culture, data registries, chemical and drug synthesis labs, and others.

	NCI based its original model for Cancer Centers on established, free-standing institutions, including Roswell Park, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, M.D. Anderson, and Fox Chase.

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