The mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is to find cures for children with catastrophic illnesses through research and treatment. Founded by the late entertainer, Danny Thomas, the hospital opened in 1962. The resources of the hospital have been focused on pediatric cancer throughout its 39-year history. Supported by a CCSG for 24 years, St. Jude Children's Cancer Center is the only NCI funded Cancer Center dedicated exclusively to research and treatment of cancer in children. Mr. Thomas also founded the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), a separate corporation whose only purpose is to raise money in support of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Patients are accepted without regard to race, religion or ability to pay. Any costs beyond that provided by third party payers are covered by ALSAC, allowing our research to be conceptually driven without the usual financial constraints on clinical investigation in the context of patient care. The Cancer Center is dedicated to long-term follow-up of its patients, thereby providing a framework for growing cancer prevention and control research initiatives which are encompassed within our research programs. Public support of the hospital through ALSAC provides an unusually strong foundation for our Cancer Center upon which extramurally funded research and CCSG support can be leveraged to their fullest potential. The St. Jude Children's Cancer Center has seven multidisciplinary research programs which collectively span the spectrum from discovery oriented research to clinical application with an emphasis on translation. Research by the 136 members of the Cancer Center is supported by 17 Shared Resources, three of which have been developed during the last cycle and which we are now proposing for CCSG funding. The overall structure of our Cancer Center and its leadership, enhanced by the recruitment of three additional, strong scientific leaders, has otherwise remained very stable. New or rapidly growing research initiatives include Developmental Neurobiology, Structural Biology, Bioinformatics and Biotechnology. Our extramural support for cancer research has nearly doubled from $21.3 million in 1996 to over $40 million today. Planned future initiatives include Chemical Biology and expansion of Immunology. In summary, our Cancer Center has grown substantially and been greatly strengthened during the past five years through recruitment, maturation of our programs and development of new research initiatives.
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