NCI Grant Contracts Boost Collaborative Clinical Research
Innovative research at the OSUCCC – James was bolstered in 2014 by a pair of multi-million-dollar grant contracts awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to support NCI-related collaborative work involving institutions across the country. These include:
- A five-year, $7.3 million grant that establishes Ohio State as an NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) Lead Academic Participating Site. Richard Goldberg, MD, physician-in-chief at the OSUCCC – James, is principal investigator (PI). The NCTN develops and conducts cancer treatment and advanced imaging clinical trials, especially large multi-institutional trials evaluating new cancer therapies and related clinical approaches for adult and pediatric patients. The grant supports OSUCCC – James participation in the NCI-funded clinical oncology cooperative groups.
- A five-year, $4.19 million grant that renews a previous NCI phase I grant contract for conducting phase I clinical trials on novel anticancer agents (new drugs and drug combinations) as part of an NCI Experimental TherapeuticsClinical Trials Network (ET-CTN) that supports the NCTN. Michael Grever, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Ohio State and co-leader of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James, is PI for the grant. The OSUCCC – James works with other network members to define the drug-development plan and conduct clinical trials for these novel anticancer agents.
Natural Anticancer Agent Discovery Continues With NCI Grant Renewal
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a five-year, $7.1 million program project grant renewal to help a multi-institutional team led by principal investigator A. Douglas Kinghorn, PhD, DSc, continue working to discover chemicals from selected tropical rainforest plants, as well as cyanobacteria and fungi, for development as cancer chemotherapeutic agents—particularly for tumors not cured by present treatments. Kinghorn is professor and the Jack L. Beal Chair of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy at Ohio State, where he also is a member of the Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Program at the OSUCCC – James. Partner institutions involved with this project are the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.