The Translational Oncology (TO) Program's mission is to develop clinical trials that promote interaction between basic scientists, translational scientists, and clinicians to facilitate improved clinical outcomes. During the last review period the Program was organized into the following three thematic areas that are emphasized in disease-specific working groups: (1) Develop and carry out early phase clinical trials with a goal to translate findings into the cooperative group or phase III setting;(2) Facilitate inclusion of predictive and prognostic biomarker profiles in clinical trials;(3) Develop novel therapeutic approaches related to antiangiogenesis agents, signaling pathways and reactive oxygen species (ROS). In order to promote interprogrammatic and intra-programmatic interactions and translational activities, disease specific translational working groups (TWGs) were recently established for melanoma, breast, Gl, prostate and cervical/GYN cancers. Clinical trials coupled to translational endpoints have been developed through inter-programmatic collaborations with other Programs, including Oncoimaging (Neoadjuvant breast), and Cacinogenesis and Signaling (CML, prostate). Over the past five years, our Program has focused on accrual to clinical research trials, including Hypothesis-driven, investigator-initiated trials (HDII), cooperative group, and pharmaceutical sponsored trials. Emphasis has been placed on HDII trials to exploit UCI's rich Comprehensive Cancer Center resources to develop novel approaches to cancer care. HDII accrual over the past six years has grown dramatically from 60 in 2002-2004 to 175 in 2005-2007. Overall interventional clinical trials accrual, excluding chemoprevention trials, was 142 in 2002-2003, increasing to 218 in 2004-2005, and 387 to date in 2005-2007, Of particular significance, this growth in accrual was linked to translational endpoints that led to peer reviewed funding and increased numbers of publications in high impact journals. The TO Program has 25 Members, representing eight Departments and one School, and has $2,024,203 in direct cancer-related peer-reviewed funding, 10 projects of which are funded by NCI for a direct total of $1,187,498. In 2007, Members published a total of 71 publications with 62 of those being cancer-related of which 44% were inter- and 16% were intra-related.
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