July 14, 2004
DFCI researchers funded for assault on ovarian cancer
A grant of $11 million over four-and-a-half years has been awarded to the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center for a broad program whose mission is to lower ovarian cancer deaths.
The prestigious National Cancer Institute grant, known as a Specialized Project of Research Excellence (or SPORE), funds projects at several centers simultaneously focusing on clinical and basic research.
"This is a very important grant, because it funds research into the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancer," says Daniel Cramer, MD, principal investigator for the collaborative project and a gynecologist with the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center. "Our mission is to investigate the full range of prevention, detection, and treatment of ovarian cancer."
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the sponsoring institution for the SPORE; Dana-Farber investigators who will share in the grant include Judy Garber, MD; Donald Kufe, MD; Alan D'Andrea, MD; Ursula Matulonis, MD; and Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD.
The American Cancer Society estimates there will be 25,580 new cases and 16,090 deaths this year from the disease, the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women.
Cramer, co-director of the Familial Ovarian Cancer Clinic at BWH and DFCI, is a leader in the field, having found many potential risk factors for the disease. His research identified the use of talc in women's personal hygiene, caffeine consumption, and increased body weight as factors that raise risk, and the use of dietary antioxidants and analgesic/anti-inflammatory medication as factors that lower it.
The projects funded by the SPORE will involve clinicians and researchers from Dana-Farber, Brigham and Women's, Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, the National Cancer Center in Maryland, and Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York.
Starting Aug. 1, the SPORE team will focus on five projects, including:
- Identifying modifiable risk factors and gene/environment interactions in ovarian cancer;
- Identifying alterations in early stage epithelial ovarian tumors;
- Identifying biomarkers of ovarian cancer from high-risk women undergoing removal of tubes and ovaries;
- Defining clinical response genes and proteins in high-risk epithelial ovarian carcinoma; and
- Development of therapeutic vaccines for ovarian cancer.
Garber, who will look for ovarian cancer biomarkers in the surgical patients, says, "We are looking forward to applying these exciting approaches to one of the most challenging problems in ovarian cancer today, early detection."
In addition to these specific projects, the SPORE will seek to advance research by funding career development and novel projects by new investigators.
"The Ovarian Cancer SPORE is an important National Institutes of Health initiative supporting the development of a more thorough understanding of the causes of this silent killer that affects about 1.5 percent of women in the United States," said Robert Barbieri, MD, chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology at BWH. "I expect that within the next five to 10 years, new medical breakthroughs will reduce the mortality associated with this disease. It is very exciting to be on the forefront of this effort, building on our past successes and working toward better understanding and treatment of ovarian cancer."
