The Cancer Genetics Program (CGP) was founded in 1995 as a developing program, with the YCC providingseed money to hire a genetic counselor, initiate a coordinated clinical and research endeavor, and fund a portionof the Program Leader's effort. In 1996, a supplement was obtained to initiate a core facility for acquiring clinicaldata and biological specimens from cancer families. Under the leadership of Dr. Alan Bale, the Program hasnearly doubled in size since its inception, and now includes 17 faculty members representing 8 departments.Cancer Genetic Counseling has grown to include 4 counselors and now functions as a Shared Resource,providing counseling services for research studies as well as for clinical support. The central themes of thisprogram are identification of genes underlying hereditary cancer predisposition, studying the role of these genesin sporadic cancer, elucidating gene function, and applying novel research findings to diagnosis, diseasemanagement, and rational drug development. An example of the type of research this program supports is cloningthe gene for the basal cell nevus syndrome (BCNS), elucidating the function of the gene using Drosophila as amodel organism, and conducting an NCI-supported, phase I clinical trial using a drug specifically targeting this keymolecular defect in skin cancer. The same strategy is being applied to a variety of other malignancies. TheProgram thus serves as a bridge between the Cancer Prevention & Control Program >(CPCP) and the GeneRegulation & Functional Genomics Program (GRFGP). While our Program members use molecular tools toidentify and characterize the function of genes that is responsible for hereditary predisposition to cancer, GRFGPis charged with characterizing the genetic and epigenetic changes in sporadic tumors. Since many of the samegenes play a role in both sporadic and hereditary cancer, discoveries by members of either program have clearrelevance to the other. A new joint project of these two programs is microarray-based sequencing of all cancerpredisposition genes. Together with CPCP, our Members also participate in efforts to examine the interplay ofenvironmental and genetic factors in cancer risk, notably ovarian and skin cancer. The skin cancer work is part ofa P50 SPORE relating common genetic variants of skin color and environmental risk factors.The Program members research funding over the past year include totaling $4.7 million direct costs ($6.67 milliontotal costs) of which $1.2 million direct costs ($1.7 million total costs) is from the NCI. Over the past 7 years, theProgram has published over peer-reviewed 164 articles of which approximately 39% resulted frominterprogrammatic collaboration and 9.1% resulted from intraprogrammatic collaboration.
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