November 5, 1999

A cancer center grant has been submitted to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) outlining a first-ever collaboration of all cancer research activities among the Harvard-affiliated institutions. The proposal was submitted in October, and if funded, the grant could support the reshaping of cancer research at Harvard.

The current cancer center grant includes only Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The proposed expanded grant would help fund a mechanism in which cancer research is more of a collaborative enterprise with investigators from seven Harvard-affiliated institutions reaching across institutional lines to work with colleagues toward a common goal.

This collaborative cancer center, called the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), includes the MGH, BWH, Dana-Farber, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The center represents the next step in an evolution that began more than 50 years ago when the Children's Cancer Research Foundation – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's original name – joined Children's Hospital in the treatment and study of children's cancers. The process gained momentum three years ago with the creation of Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare (DF/PCC), the collaboration in adult oncology involving the MGH, BWH and Dana-Farber.

"One of the main reasons for creating DF/PCC was to enhance our ability to do clinical trials – to enlarge the pool of patients participating in clinical trials so we could get answers and find better treatments more quickly," says David G. Nathan, MD, president of Dana-Farber. "That's worked beautifully. The number of patients in clinical trials has increased significantly, and pharmaceutical companies are more interested in working with us because we have streamlined the process of reviewing and approving trials."

This thinking, Nathan says, led to the creation of a Harvardwide system that not only includes clinical research but also basic science and population research.

As described in the grant application, the DF/HCC initially encompasses 800 researchers working in 15 programs. Members of the center include principal investigators and program leaders for cancer-related research grants; investigators who participate in clinical cancer research by developing protocols or participating in clinical trials; as well as established cancer researchers who are currently launching their own laboratories.

The center also includes various resource centers – or cores. Some of these are new, such as labs for high through-put DNA sequencing and rodent pathology. Some existing cores are being enhanced, and others such as the clinical trials and pharmacology cores at the MGH and Dana-Farber, are already fully functional.

To overcome the logistical obstacles of having researchers from seven separate institutions working together, a DF/HCC Intranet is expected to go online in the next few weeks. The Intranet will enable members to exchange research results, critique each other's work and review new findings while keeping information confidential.

The NCI will review the application and send a team of site visitors to Dana-Farber and its co-applicants in February to determine whether the project will be funded and at what level. The proposal seeks $10.3 million a year for five years. Formal notification of the application approval and funding level from the NCI is expected next spring. The grant would be funded in July 2000.