DEVELOPMENTAL FUNDS (Core-065) ABSTRACT Overview and Goals: CCSG Developmental Funds are used with the goal of supporting the pursuit of new scientific opportunities that, when properly selected, provide a significant boost to UCCC research activities. In the current grant period, CCSG Developmental Funds have been used in combination with philanthropic funds to promote strategic priorities of the UCCC in personalized medicine and population health by supporting two projects. The first project is the Human Tumor Model-based Databank (HTMD). The HTMD has two goals: 1) Assist UCCC members to establish their own Patient Derived Xenografts (PDX) and 2) house a central database of all `omics information on PDX so evaluated that can be used for integrative analyses and queried remotely by UCCC members seeking to study tumors with specific genomic, transcriptomic or proteomic markers. The second project was aimed at nurturing growth of survivorship research at the UCCC via support for a staff investigator, Jean Kutner MD, charged with promoting this area in our Cancer Prevention and Control (CPC) program. Scientific Progress: With the goal of promoting translational research, UCCC leadership invested in the development of the HTMD. In the last 5 years established over 250 unique patient derived xenografts (PDX). Over 100 of these have been `omically profiled and are available for use and data query by UCCC members. This success allowed us to obtain a CCSG administrative supplement both promoting this UCCC program and benefitting the nation by contributing our PDXs to the NCI repository. The PDXs have been used in 24 publications and have lead or supported the initiation of clinical trials, some highlighted in our Program and SR write-ups. In the same time frame, Kutner formed a UCCC Special Interest Group (SIG) for cancer survivorship research that led to: 1) opening of eight survivorship research protocols; 2) a collaborative pilot program with the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center (AHWC) to enroll cancer survivors in a supervised, exercise program to measure the effect of an exercise regimen on quality of life and outcomes. A number of publications (33) and grants ($1.35M in 2015) can be attributed to Kutner's leadership of the SIG. Future Directions: In the next 5 years we aim to use CCSG Developmental Funds to support pilot grants with cancer relevant organizations across the UCCC consortium in a cost-shared manner with the objective to develop collaborative and synergistic scientific projects that promote exceptional research across UCCC and leverage existing institutional strengths. Projects will be selected based on their potential to exploit unique research ideas and capabilities and translate these into innovations that are likely to lead to external funding and subsequent major advances in cancer medicine. We will monitor and evaluate success of this pilot grant funding based on measurable outcomes (publications, grants, trials). In summary, this program will leverage institutional strengths and financial resources to establish and/or deepen inter and intra-institutional relationships and promote future sponsored research grant applications and cancer research innovations.
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