This grant supports Network Lead Academic Participating Site (NLAPS) at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care ? a community of investigators and clinicians committed to reduce the burden of cancer in American society by contributing scientific leadership and patient accrual to the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) activities of the National Cancer Institute. Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care includes three of Harvard's major teaching hospitals ? Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham & Women's Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital ? and the grant supports the cancer researchers and clinicians based at those hospitals. This community of investigators and clinicians has a remarkable track record of leadership in the NCTN including executive leaders of cooperative groups, investigators heading national trials, and researchers who develop pilot studies and preclinical experiments that lead to definitive, practice-defining clinical trials in the NCTN. The NLAPS also has a tremendous record of robust accrual to NCTN trials. Notably, the scientific and accrual contributions cover the full spectrum of cancer need in the US, including major cancer types (breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, and others) as well as less common but important cancers (head and neck, melanoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, sarcoma and others), and all modalities of cancer treatment including medical therapies, radiation treatments, surgery, biostatistical design, translational science, and innovations in symptom control and supportive care for cancer patients. Recent scientific advances that emerged from DF/PCC leadership in the NCTN include new treatment standards in prostate cancer, breast cancer, leukemia, and melanoma. The NLAPS grant is vital to the mission of DF/PCC and allows its investigators to offer cutting edge treatments to patients through innovative studies that will define the future of cancer care in America.
This grant is to support the investigators of the Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care (DF/PCC) NLAPS in their efforts to provide scientific leadership and accrual to the national fight against cancer. The Harvard-affiliated DF/PCC investigators have for decades been leaders in developing critical clinical trials that have set the standard for cancer treatment in the US, in developing the scientific rationale for those trials, and in enrolling patients on the most important studies that move the field forward. Investigators from DF/PCC have made and continue to make contributions as leaders in critical NCTN trials that have in recent years improved outcomes for patients with prostate cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, myeloma, leukemia, ovarian cancer and other tumor types, helping reduce the burden of cancer in American society, and improved survival for patients in the US and across the world.
