COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) has been awarded a five-year, $5.3 million grant renewal from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct early-stage human clinical trials.

The grant will enable a consortium of academic institutions led by the OSUCCC – James to continue conducting phase I and II clinical trials involving targeted experimental agents that provide patients with some of the latest available treatments.

The consortium is headed by principal investigator William Carson, MD, associate director for clinical research at the OSUCCC – James, and is staffed by the Clinical Trials Office.

The funding award, known as a UM1 grant, will allow the integration of Ohio State’s experimental therapeutics efforts with three sub-site institutions: the University of Kentucky, the University of Utah and the University of North Carolina. The entire grant amount will come to Ohio State, with distribution of funds to the sub-sites based on accrual of patients to the study. 

The grant is one of only eight awarded nationally to institutions within the NCI’s Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network, which was created to evaluate innovative cancer treatments using a coordinated and team-based approach to early-phase experimental therapeutic clinical trials on NCI investigational new drug agents.

NCI UM1 grants support cooperative agreements involving large-scale research activities with complicated structures that cannot be appropriately categorized into an available single-component activity code (e.g., clinical networks, research programs or consortiums). Carson, a professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, says participation in the phase I-II consortium enables the OSUCCC – James to provide patients with access to cutting-edge experimental anticancer drugs and innovative multimodality treatment approaches.

“This mechanism allows Ohio State investigators to have access to a large portfolio of experimental drugs that can be used to fuel new cancer treatments based on Buckeye science,” he says. “Right now we have several dozen studies that are open to accrual here at The James.”

Carson also notes that a particular emphasis of the grant is the use of novel trial designs and a focus on studies conceived and developed by early-career cancer investigators at the OSUCCC – James.

“In the past two years, the NCI has approved eight new studies that were developed by recently hired assistant professors and are now fully activated for accrual,” he says. “These are exciting clinical trials that help new investigators get started and on the career path to further discoveries.”

Carson points out that the OSUCCC – James has received NCI funding to conduct phase I and II clinical trials on novel agents sponsored by the NCI for several years. The grant and consortium previously were led by Michael Grever, MD, now an emeritus professor in the Division of Hematology and former chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Ohio State.

Carson says he is proud to carry on the tradition of innovative drug discovery at the OSUCCC – James that provides patients with cutting-edge anticancer treatments. 

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Media Contact: Amanda J. Harper
OSUCCC – James Media Relations
Direct Line: 614-685-5420
Central Media Relations: 614-293-3737
Amanda.Harper2@osumc.edu

*Original story written by Bob Hecker, Robert.Hecker@osumc.edu.