The head and neck oncology program has 26 members from three schools and nine Departments supported by more than $1.5 million annual direct costs. This program which was a developing program at the last submission has now matured into a full program. The program has now co-directors, Carol Bradford, M.D., and Thomas Carey, Ph.D. It conducts weekly multi-disciplinary head and neck tumor boards, monthly program meetings, and a annual day-long retreat at an off-site location to discuss clinical protocols and basic sciences advances as well as future directions. A head and neck oncology research consortium formed in 1999 generated the team of scientists and physicians which constitutes our basic and translational research program. Under the new leadership, new initiatives and collaborations have developed, and the program has grown to have significant NIH funding. Program members plan to submit a SPORE application in the year 2001. At the present time, the program has nine active investigator-initiative clinical protocols. The highly focused clinical and research themes of the program pertain to organ-sparing modalities to treat head and neck cancer and molecular markers to predict response to treatment. Former program director and current program member, Gregory Wolf, M.D., Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology, pioneered organ preservation treatment in advanced cancer of the larynx.. The active clinical protocols expand upon this theme with concomitant chemotherapy and radiation approaches to the larynx and other sites within the head and neck. Interprogrammatic collaborations with the Experimental Therapeutics Program has led to active clinical protocols and basic science investigations in radiosensitization with Gemcitabine. Collaborations with the Socio- Behavioral Program has led to funded research programs investigating quality of life. These programs involve patients with head and neck tumors who are receiving parotid-sparing comprehensive irradiation and others in whom smoking, alcohol and depression intervention is investigated. Collaborations with the Dental School have led to a Research Career Award for a promising young investigator, Nisha D'Silva, D.D.S., Ph.D. The highly interactive program has strong intra- and inter-programmatic collaborations with more than 40 joint publications and nine new collaborative grant applications.
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