Skip to main content
An official website of the United States government
Government Funding Lapse
Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.

The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov.

Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.

Email

Alice Chen

A doctor, Dr. Alice Chen, with short, dark hair wearing glasses and a surgical mask sits next to a patient wearing a hat, glasses, surgical mask, and yellow t-shirt in an exam room.

Dr. Alice Chen sits with one of her patients. Dr. Chen headed an NCI clinical trial which resulted in the first FDA approval of a drug to treat advanced alveolar soft part sarcoma in children and adults.

Credit: National Cancer Institute

Head, Early Clinical Trials Development Program and Developmental Therapeutics Clinic at NCI

As an oncologist for adults, Dr. Alice Chen doesn’t usually treat children, but rare tumors do not discriminate by age. Therefore, when developing a clinical trial to study alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS)—a very rare cancer that occurs most in young people—including children and adolescents made perfect sense.  

Data from the trial led to the first US Food and Drug Administration approval of a drug to treat advanced ASPS. While Alice led this effort, she also credits her collaborators. Among them are sarcoma doctors in the Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network, members of NCI’s Pediatric Oncology Branch, and her “amazing and supportive team of research nurses and administrative staff.”  

The findings are already making a difference. “We’ve seen this approval impact the patients we take care of,” said Alice. “It’s so important that we continue to develop rare cancer trials to offer patients opportunities to receive treatment, collect research information, and advance the field.”
 

CCDI is working to make data from research like Alice’s broadly available to help more young people with cancer.

  • Posted:

If you would like to reproduce some or all of this content, see Reuse of NCI Information for guidance about copyright and permissions. In the case of permitted digital reproduction, please credit the National Cancer Institute as the source and link to the original NCI product using the original product's title; e.g., “Alice Chen was originally published by the National Cancer Institute.”

Email