Mayo Clinic Cancer Center Support Grant, Extends Comprehensive Status renewed by NCI

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Mayo Clinic Cancer Center (MCCC) received an additional five years of National Cancer Institute (NCI) funding and re-designation as a comprehensive cancer center – a recognition for an institution's scientific excellence and multidisciplinary resources focused on cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Mayo Clinic has the only NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center conducting research at three distinct locations across the United States — in Jacksonville, Fla., Scottsdale, Ariz., and at its main campus in Rochester, Minn. With NCI approval in 2003, the MCCC incorporated its cancer research activity at the three sites into a single, integrated institution.

The NCI Cancer Center Support Grant award to MCCC totals more than $28 million over five years for infrastructure and administrative support for the 450 MCCC scientists and physicians. At Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, physician and scientist investigators are working to bring the knowledge gained at the research "bench" to the "bedside" to help patients, particularly those facing breast, colorectal, lung, brain and hematology malignancies.

Within its scope as an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, the MCCC designs and develops translational clinical studies that arise from collaborations between scientists and physicians.

"The NCI grant ensures the continuity of MCCC research programs that contribute to improved medical options for cancer patients," said Robert C. Smallridge, M.D., deputy director of MCCC in Jacksonville. "For our cancer researchers here on the Florida campus, the funding provides an opportunity to continue the important work we've been doing in clinical, translational and basic cancer research."

The MCCC faculty is organized into programs that focus on 12 key cancer research themes. They include Women's Cancers, Neuro-Oncology, Hematologic (blood-borne) Malignancies, Gene and Virus Therapy, Developmental Therapeutics, Genetic Epidemiology and Risk Assessment, Immunology and Immunotherapy, Gastrointestinal Cancers, Prostate Cancer, Cell Biology, Cancer Imaging, and Cancer Prevention and Control.

In addition, MCCC has robust programs in cancer education – training new cancer physicians and scientists, providing continuing cancer medical education programs to hundreds of physicians, nurses and other medical personnel and conducting dozens of public education programs each year. MCCC also devotes significant resources to reducing cancer health disparities faced by racial and ethnic minorities.

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About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy of "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,700 physicians, scientists and researchers and 50,100 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has sites in Rochester, Minn; Jacksonville, Fla; and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. and community based providers in more than 70 locations in Southern Minn., Western Wis. and Northeast Iowa. These locations treat more than half a million people each year. To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. For information about research and education, visit www.mayo.edu. MayoClinic.com is available as a resource for your health stories.