NCI Launches Initiatives

In the last two months of 1998, the National Cancer Institute announced seven new initiatives set to cost a total of $343 million over the next five years: As part of a new report entitled The National Cancer Institute Tobacco Research Implementation Plan, Priorities for Tobacco Research Beyond the Year 2000, two initiatives, the "Transdisciplinary Tobacco Research Centers" and "Research in State and Community Tobacco Control Interventions" programs, will be funded at $142 million over five years. The tobacco research centers are intended to unite researchers from different scientific disciplines to attempt to determine, among other things, why children start smoking, how people can be helped to quit smoking, and whether genes predispose people to smoking. "By bringing people from different disciplines together, we believe that some real advances can be made that aren't possible under traditional funding mechanisms," maintains Marc Manley, chief of the tobacco control research branch at NCI. The second initiative will study the effectiveness of state and community tobacco control interventions by examining how states should allot money for mass media programs, counter advertising campaigns, and intervene in other ways. "The two new initiatives ... are among the largest tobacco research initiatives NCI has ever started," says Manley. "And for them to approve two of them at once is just unprecedented." A five-year initiative, "Director's Challenge: Toward a Molecular Classification of Tumors," will challenge researchers to distinguish between different types of tumors based on sets of genes and molecular changes unique to those tumors. NCI hopes that scientists may be able to improve treatments and elucidate tumor behavior. The initiative builds on the institute's Cancer Genome Anatomy Project. A new imaging initiative will include the creation of several "Centers for In Vivo Cell and Molecular Imaging" and the foundation of 12 grants for the study and application of imaging technologies: six grants totaling $7.2 million over three years and six more totaling $48 million over five years. NCI would like to expand the use of imaging devices such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to include not only the noninvasive scanning of anatomical features, but the detection of actual molecular events--a potentially advantageous tool for monitoring the success of new cancer therapies (E. Russo, "Imaging Devices to Benefit Both Mouse and Biologist," The Scientist, 12[21]:1, Oct. 26, 1998). The first set of grants will be awarded for new multidisciplinary research groups at institutions; the second set is meant for institutions that already have interdisciplinary research in place. A $61 million, five-year "Early Detection Research Network" initiative will support the creation of a network of centers intended to uncover and evaluate biomarkers--present in blood, urine, sputum, or tissues--for the early detection of common cancers. The network will consist of a Consortium for Biomarkers in Early Detection Research, a steering committee, an advisory committee, and a Data Management and Coordinating Center. Two assistance programs, "Rapid Access to Intervention Development" (RAID) and "Rapid Access to Preventative Intervention Development" (RAPID), are meant to improve the ease with which anticancer agents that show promise in the laboratory can be taken into the clinic for human trials. RAID and RAPID offer an opportunity for academic investigators to apply for the NCI support necessary to expedite the development of novel drugs. NCI expects to award $10 million in the first year (1999) of RAID, and at least $2 million in the first year (2000) RAPID. NCI has set aside $30 million over the next five years for a "Leadership Initiative on Cancer" that's intended to foster cancer awareness and community-based educational activities, and to promote research on cancer control in minority communities.

NCI Launches Initiatives

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