The Summary of Research Programs at National Foundation For Cancer Research

Background Information

Since it's founding in 1973, the National Foundation for Cancer Research has provided more than $240 million to fund basic science cancer research in the laboratory. NFCR is about Research for a Cure and is dedicated to funding the cancer research scientists around the world in searching for the cures for all types of cancers. For more information call (800) 321-CURE.

The Research Program of NFCR

NFCR has provided the seed money for many of today's most promising breakthroughs in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of many types of cancer. We are accelerating the pace of cancer research by recognizing innovation ideas at their infancy and providing scientists with the initial funding to initiate the research.

The Scale

NFCR research program covers a broad spectrum of subjects in cancer research. It includes studies on cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for all major types of cancers, such as lung, breast, prostate cancer and leukemia. The broad scale of research activity allows NFCR to investigate more approaches and methods for healthy people to prevent cancers more effectively, for clinical doctors to detect cancers earlier, and for cancer patients to have more therapeutic choices to fight the cancer.

The Strategy

In order to make its cancer research program more productive, NFCR has established an international network of research centers to create a taken a "Laboratory Without Walls" that promotes the sharing of ideas and information across the research institutions and disciplines. Each of these centers is supported by several academic satellite laboratories, which are lead by NFCR Project Directors and are focused on important and specific areas of cancer resrach. This structure creates an international research network that actively promotes the collaborations between NFCR scientists, and it also speeds up the progress in cancer research. Today, eight NFCR Research Centers have been established and twenty-five NFCR Project Directors are working on various cancer research projects. The eight NFCR Research Centers are listed below:

• NFCR Center for Proteomics and Drug at Vanderbilt University
• NFCR Center for Computational Drug Discovery at Oxford University (UK)
• NFCR Center for Metastasis Research at University of Alabama/Penn State University/University of Chicago
• NFCR Center for Molecular Imaging at Case Western Reserve University
• NFCR Center for Molecular Targeted Therapy at the Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology (Beijing, China)
• NFCR Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies at Tgen - Phoenix, AZ
• NFCR Center for Anti-Cancer Drug Design and Discovery at Yale University
• NFCR Center for Global Collaboration at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, China
• Joint Tissue Banking Facility at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, China 
• NFCR Center for Therapeutic Antibody Engineering at Dana - Farber Institute at Harvard University

The Research Focus

We believe that cancer research at the molecular and cellular levels will lead to better prevention, earlier diagnosis, new treatments, and eventually a cure for cancer.

Historically, NFCR has supported discover-oriented basic science cancer research. Today, we are expanding into areas of translational and clinical research. By roadening our traditional research objectives, we are now able to influence all areas of cancer research, including drug discovery and development of new therapies and better diagnostic techniques. Based on this belief, for the past three years NFCR has refocused its research efforts on molecular therapy, a scientific priority in cancer research area that aims to better understand the molecular mechanisms of cancer and identify cancer related molecular targets for new drug development.

We are coordinating our research activities in both discovery and application fronts so that the knowledge about cancer at the molecular and cellular level can be translated into novel anti-cancer strategies, preventives, diagnostics, and therapeutics.

Highlights of Accomplishments

With the financial support of NFCR research funding, NFCR scientists around the world have made tremendous contributions to cancer research for the past 29 years. Hundreds of research papers have been published on peer-reviewed scientific journals, and the same number of, if not more, research presentations from NFCR funded laboratories and research centers have been made at various professional cancer research conferences or meetings. Many of these research outcomes have been applied to develop practical anticancer strategies, early cancer diagnostic methods, and novel anticancer therapeutics that are benefiting cancer patients. A few examples of these accomplishments made by the NFCR scientists are listed below:

Bruce Ames, at University of California at Berkeley, developed a simple, inexpensive, and rapid screening test, the Ames Test, for detecting cancer-inducing compounds. Dr. Ames also identified the cause-effect relationships for oxidative DNA damage and cancer. These findings have been translated into intelligible public policy recommendations on diet and cancer risk.

Steve Benkovic, at Pennsylvania State University, has researched transformylase enzymes which are targets for new chemotherapeutic agents against a variety of solid tumors. There are several compounds based on transformylase in advanced stage clinical trials to treat tumors.

Harold Dvorak, at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School, discovered the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) protein responsible for tumor blood vessel formation--angiogenesis. Virtually every pharmaceutical company in the world today is engaged in developing VEGF inhibitors to shut down angiogenesis and cut off the blood supply to tumors, and halt cancer growth.

Kathryn Horwitz, at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, has discovered progesterone receptors in breast cancer, which are markers of hormone dependence and the indicators of disease prognosis. Patients with breast cancer now routinely have their tumors assayed for the presence of progesterone receptors, which guides their physician's decisions about what kind of therapy the patient should get.

Aaron Klug, the Nobel laureate, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, developed/identified site-specific DNA-binding proteins with zinc-fingers and demonstrated their capabilities to inhibit the expression of cancer genes (e.g. leukemia gene) and viral genes (e.g. HIV and HSV). The goal of this research is to develop a new class of anti-cancer and/or anti-viral medicine that works in a novel mechanism of action with a higher effectiveness.

Cesar Milstein, the Nobel laureate, at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, discovered how to make monoclonal antibodies and developed new methods to produce humanized antibodies suitable for tumor therapy. Several drugs, including Herceptin for breast cancer and Rituxan for non-hodgkin lymphomas, are derived from this discovery. Many drugs are now in clinical trials and awaiting for FDA approval.

Helmut Sies, at Heinrich Heine University, discovered that lycopenes in tomatoes prevent oxidation and have significant anticancer effects, especially in the processed or heated form, which allows lycopenes to be more easily absorbed by the human body. Clinical trials with lycopenes are now underway to prevent prostate cancer.

Bert Vogelstein and members of his Molecular Genetics Lab at Johns Hopkins University led research on the tumor suppressor gene, "p53." Abnormality of this suppressor gene are implicated in over half of all human cancers. The p53 gene has become the most studied gene in medicine

Danny Welch, at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, discovered metastasis suppressor genes KiSS1 and BRMS1. It will help scientists to develop new drugs against these genetic targets to stop the deadly uncontrolled spread of melanoma and breast cancer.