Cancer Center Q&A
What is a cancer center?
A cancer center is an organizational structure that facilitates the integration of the school's cancer activities in patient care, research, and education. It brings together all of these things from affiliated institutions.
Why a cancer center?
BCM wants to provide a structure for integrated multidisciplinary patient care, collaborative basic, translational, and clinical research and community education and outreach in order to reduce cancer incidence and mortality.
Which institutions will participate in The Cancer Center?
Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Ben Taub General Hospital and St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital
What are the benefits of having an NCI-designated cancer center?
Having an NCI-designated cancer center brings together individual researchers into thematic programs and enhances communication among researchers and clinicians.
Currently, BCM's cancer researchers do not have a structure that provides opportunities for collaborative communication. With an organizational structure in place, the faculty should feel more unified in a collaborative effort. For the NCI p30 grant, eight major programs of excellence have been identified. These programs include cell and gene therapy, cancer prevention and population sciences, molecular carcinogenesis, nuclear receptor biology, breast cancer, pediatric oncology, cancer biology, and prostate cancer. The grant will also provide financial support for research infrastructure.
What types of cancer research will the center conduct?
The center will conduct basic, translational, clinical and epidemiology/population based research. The basic research serves as the foundation for eventual development of new treatments and cancer prevention, but the Center also focuses on translating what is learned in basic research to the clinical arena for improvements in patient care. Researchers of epidemiology/population based studies analyze data of cancer incidence to identify patterns and possible causes of cancer.
What is the goal of The Cancer Center?
The immediate goal of the cancer center is to obtain an NCI p30 grant, which indicates that the center has met or exceeds the six essential elements for designation as a comprehensive center by the NCI. The core grant application will be submitted by February 2006 with a site visit scheduled in May. We should learn by late summer if we attained designation.
What are the six essential elements of an NCI-designated cancer center?
- Dedicated facilities
- Organizational capabilities to conduct, evaluate, and plan
- Interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research
- Cancer focus demonstrated by program structure and members grants
- Institutional commitment: formal structure, sufficient space, positions and resources to insure stability, and fulfillment of objectives
- Qualified center director with authority appropriate to manage the Center
Will there be an actual cancer center building?
A few faculty members will be housed in designated cancer center space in the new Baylor Clinic or in laboratory space in the planned research tower, but most will reside in their respective departments. The cancer center serves as a conduit to bring together faculty members from different departments who have common research interests, rather than housing members in one building.
Eventually, as the center grows, additional clinical and laboratory space requirements may justify a separate structure similar to other more mature centers.