Spring 2005 Newsletter: Cancer Research Center Launches Campaign to Realize the Potential of New Age of Discovery

By Michelle M. Le Beau, PhD, Director,
University of Chicago Cancer Research Center

The University of Chicago Cancer Research Center (UCCRC), the University’s Biological Sciences Division (BSD), and its Hospitals have embarked on a focused effort to restructure, transform and energize cancer research. This is an ideal time to concentrate on malignant diseases. Never before have we had an almost unlimited opportunity to discover ways to reduce suffering and deaths from cancer, the number one cause of mortality in America. We have a chance to lower the incidence of many acute forms of cancer and to turn them into chronic ones.

The UCCRC is ground zero for this drive for greater excellence. The Center is a collaborative effort of more than 200 researchers and physicians engaged in discovering new insights into cancer’s causes, characteristics, and cures.

One of the Center’s greatest strengths is the support of the community and its dedicated friends like the Cancer Research Foundation (CRF). The CRF has always been an invaluable ally as the University pushes the boundaries of science and achieves fundamental breakthroughs in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. The CRF’s continued support will be vital if the Center is to obtain its ambitious objectives and lead the revolution in cancer research.

The body of fundamental scientific knowledge is growing at an incredible rate. Scientists have learned more about cancer in the last 15 years than had been discovered in all the preceding centuries. This wealth of new information has accelerated the pace of discovery and innovation and opened the door to scores of new ways to battle the disease. Researchers also have access to the fundamental building blocks of life, and they are able to study cancers at the molecular level. For example, innovative technologies enable us to determine the genetic profile or “fingerprint” of an individual’s tumor cells, and allow us to attack particular cancers at their root causes: the specific cells driving abnormal growth.

At the same time, this new knowledge confirms the unlikelihood that medicine will discover a single wonder drug that will eliminate or completely control all cancers. The more scientists learn about the disease, the more they appreciate its complexity. Cancer arises from many different types of cells, and each cancer has many sub-types. Consequently, the solution does not lie in a “magic bullet,” but in a range of treatments that can accommodate all of these variations, as well as the individual needs of each patient.

Fortunately, the Center has advantages that will enable it to pursue this complicated and difficult mission effectively. The first strength is its tradition of accomplishment in cancer research. The Center’s 30-year history of excellence, expertise and execution is rooted in the University of Chicago’s longterm commitment to biological research. The Center is also blessed with one of the University greatest assets: the exceptional intellectual capital provided by the community of doctors, medical researchers, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and environmental and social scientists.

This combination of resources is essential for success when the nature of the problem demands a multi-faceted approach. The University of Chicago has a strong tradition of scholarly interaction, which hearkens back to its founding and its guiding principle: A fundamental body of knowledge is the essential grounding of specialized intellectual pursuits. This emphasis complements another University hallmark: Its long-standing commitment to excellent, inter-disciplinary research.

Of course, this focus on cross-disciplinary interaction is not exclusive to The University of Chicago. Many other institutions, large and small, have or are trying to make the switch, but no other university is better situated for this approach. As Dr. James Madara, Dean of the BSD, describes it, the University is “culturally or anatomically positioned to do so. This place has an unusual combination of real and proven strengths with the modest size that is required to pull this off.”

Moreover, the Division is putting resources behind its vow to integrate all its cancer research efforts, focus its resources and employ them more effectively. The new Interdivisional Research Building (or IRB), which will open this summer, is a manifestation of this renewed emphasis on inter-disciplinary research. The IRB will bring basic scientists and physicists together at one location to work side by side. The Ben May Institute for Cancer Research will be located in the IRB. The Ben May Institute unites specialists in biochemistry, organic chemistry, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, genetics, and medicine in the battle against cancer.

Even more compelling evidence of the University’s commitment to cancer research is the decision to build a second, interdisciplinary facility: the 250-foot -tall New Research Building, scheduled for completion in Fall 2007. Three of the building’s ten floors will be devoted to cancer research. The Cancer Research Center itself will occupy an entire floor, which will be adjacent to or sandwiched between the two other cancer floors, to encourage interaction among researchers. More importantly, the Cancer Research Center will have the opportunity to recruit a number of new research faculty to develop and extend the Center’s research programs in key areas.

The NRB will be located adjacent to the IRB, and the two facilities will enable the University to create a critical mass of cancer programs to stimulate future development and interaction. State-of-the-art labs will provide researchers with efficient, convenient, and productive facilities. The Center, the BSD and the University of Chicago Hospitals are engaged in an intense campaign to recruit the most talented individuals available. This alliance will encourage the hiring of new faculty with exemplary backgrounds in cancer-related activities.

These new researchers will join a carefully orchestrated effort to promote change. The Center is taking great care to ensure that this process of transformation is pursued deliberately and carefully to maximize resources and contribute full value to the University, the University Hospitals, and the region. This is why the Center is engaged in a strategic planning effort that accounts for the needs of patients and their families, faculty, and the people of the Chicago area. This comprehensive, collaborative and facultydriven effort is delineated in the Center’s strategic plan, which covers five focus areas.

The first area integrates a series of steps designed to enhance the Center’s role and presence in the University, strengthen its operations and improve its marketing and fundraising capabilities. Key to this objective is the creation of the Cancer Advisory Committee, which will take responsibility for implementing the strategic plan’s recommendations, as well as to advise Dean Madara, and to better integrate the goals of the Center with the objectives of the University and its Hospitals.

The second priority is Scientific Program Development, specifically to identify promising areas for growth and development, delineate ways to enrich and expand program areas, and promote collaboration among researchers, clinicians, social scientists, and prevention and control researchers. To this end, we have established five interdisciplinary working groups (Upper Aeorodigestive Oncology, Gastrointestinal Oncology, Women’s Cancer Initiative, Metastasis, and Drug Discovery and Development) to identify key areas for strategic growth.

Core Development, the third focus area, integrates the Center’s programs to enhance its shared laboratories (or Core Facilities), which are vital to contemporary biomedical research and critical for attracting and retaining the finest research faculty available. These centralized facilities provide our faculty with ready access to the most sophisticated technologies and expertise available. They enhance our researchers’ productivity and allow them to engage in innovative work using advanced equipment that could not be accommodated by the budgets or capabilities of their own laboratories.

The fourth priority is Biomedical Informatics, which is the use of computer technologies to manage and integrate the explosion of information about cancers and its treatment. The Center has developed an action plan for expediting and simplifying access to the information researchers need to meet their objectives. Improvements in data collection, organization and distribution will open up new avenues for exploration and discovery.

The final set of recommendations outlines actions to promote Cancer Prevention, Cancer Control, and Population Sciences. These disciplines offer enormous potential for preventing cancer and helping communities deal with its impacts.

In the aggregate, these recommendations provide a comprehensive guide for the future. Implementation of the plan will enable the Center to make its extraordinary group of professionals even stronger, provide them with state-of-the-art resources, and reinforce its elite position among the nation’s cancer centers, which are the centerpiece in the national war against cancer. This plan provides the strategy that will ensure that the Center remains at the forefront of cancer research even as the pace of scientific discovery accelerates and the number of medical breakthroughs multiplies.

The plan also is in harmony with national priorities established by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institutes of Health. In his article on the NCI 2006 budget in the December 7, 2004 NCI Cancer Bulletin, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, NCI Director, identifies seven key strategic areas: “cancer prevention, early detection, and prediction; overcoming cancer health disparities; the strategic development of cancer interventions; an integrated cancer trials system; advanced technologies; integrative cancer biology; and molecular epidemiology.”

I am sure that Dr. Von Eschenbach shares our excitement in the future of cancer research. As we delve deeper into the molecular mysteries of cancer cells, develop answers to the age-old questions about cancer’s causes, and discover how to inhibit and stop the development and expression of malignancies, we will have unprecedented opportunities to reduce cancer suffering and death. With the support of organizations like the Cancer Research Foundation, the Center will play a significant role in the realization of the enormous potential of cancer research in this time of discovery.