Frequently Asked Questions: Dan. L. Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine NCI designation
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 will 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 are participating in the Dan L. Duncan 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 helps bring together individual researchers into thematic programs and enhances communication among researchers and clinicians. It will help BCM attract even more high quality investigators and physicians to the join the cancer team in Houston, and provides additional financial support and access to special "center only" grants from the NIH.
With an organizational structure in place, the faculty should feel more unified in a collaborative effort. At the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, 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 NCI designation provides financial support for research infrastructure.
What types of cancer research will the center conduct?
The center conducts basic, translational, clinical and epidemiology or population based research. Basic research serves as the foundation for eventual development of new treatments and cancer prevention by helping scientists understand how essential biological processes work. Translational research focuses on taking what is learned in basic research and "translating" this new knowledge into useful clinical applications for improvements in patient care. Epidemiologists and population based investigators analyze data of cancer incidence and demographics to identify patterns and team with basic and translational researchers to identify possible causes of cancer for groups of people.
What are the six essential elements that the National Cancer Institute uses to evaluate an organization for NCI-designation as a cancer center?
- Dedicated facilities that are sufficient to help the center meet its goals.
- Organizational capabilities to conduct, evaluate and plan.
- Interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research that involves many individuals from different backgrounds.
- Research that clearly focuses on cancer demonstrated by program structure and members grants.
- Institutional commitment embodied in a formal structure, sufficient space, positions and resources to insure stability, and fulfillment of objectives of the center.
- A qualified center director and senior leadership team 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 new 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 cancer center grows, additional clinical and laboratory space requirements may justify a separate structure similar to other more mature centers.