UPRCCMDACC Partners for Excellence in Cancer Research

1
UPRCC/MDACCPartners for Excellence in Cancer
Research

• With a Hispanic population of 4 million people
  and a large central and public university, a
  commitment by the academic, government and
  private sectors of Puerto Rico to develop an
  NCI-designated Cancer Center could be an enormous
  boost to the health and economy of the island.
• PSC, January 15, 2003, San Juan, Puerto Rico

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Program Steering Committee

• Provide recommendations for establishing overall
  priorities, changing directions, and identifying
  new areas of opportunity for the partnership.
  
• Review current pilot projects and programs and
  recommend their continuation, triage, or
  application for external funding through
  traditional mechanisms.
• Review potential new pilot programs for their
  inclusion into the partnership
  
• Review and recommend changes in institutional
  commitment of resource to the partnership
  
• Provide guidance and advice in the planning and
  submission of the U54 noncompetitive and
  competitive applications

3
The 10-year plan
Investment
NCI application
Facilities
Recruitment
PSC, January 15, 2003, San Juan, Puerto Rico
4
U54 Program Steering Committee

• Obligation to oversee development of
• Research
• Training and Career Development
• Education
• Outreach
• What are we (PSC) looking for?

5
U54 Program Steering Committee

• Research
• The most significant component of the program
• Must be joint in the real sense of the word
• Joint pilot and full research projects in any
  area of basic, clinical, prevention, control,
  behavioral or population research
  
• CCCs ,must must specifically address areas of
  cancer disparity in minority populations

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U54 Program Steering Committee

• Research
• The expectation is that successful pilot
  research projects will become full research
  projects and that full research projects will
  become competitively funded grants (e.g., R03,
  R01 project on a P01 project on a P50)

7
U54 Program Steering Committee

• Training and Career Development
• Focus on joint programs between MSI and the CCC
  that place an emphasis on the training of
  minority scientists
  
• Focus on educating majority trainees to
  appreciate the issues and problems associated
  with cancer disparities in minority populations
  
• Special emphasis on training of minority
  scientists in clinical, behavioral and population
  research
  
• Collaborations must be seamless across
  institutions and culturally sensitive
  
• Minority supplements to R01, R03, P01sKEY
• Eventually, training grant applications should
  follow
  

8
U54 Program Steering Committee

• Cancer Education
• Could focus on any effort to augment existing or
  create new curricula in the MSI and/or the CCC
  
• Should apprise and culturally sensitize graduate
  and postdoctoral students in research, medicine
  and public health of the need to reduce
  disproportionate cancer burden in minority
  populations. 
• A successful effort may result in an NCI
  education grant (R25E) and later to institutional
  commitments to make these curricula an inherent
  component of their educational systems.

9
U54 Program Steering Committee

• Cancer Outreach
• Cancer outreach programs may be defined as
  proactive efforts to help minority communities
  develop and manage their own culturally
  sensitive programs for educating their
  populations about cancer risk, early detection,
  screening, prevention, and treatment
• MSIs and CCCs are expected to combine their
  expertise in working with minority leaders and
  organizations in the community to develop
  outreach programs (church, government, CME,
  electronic)
• Should result in enhanced recruitment into cancer
  prevention and treatment clinical trials
  

10
Program Steering Committee

• Long term, developing a NCI-approved Cancer
  Center, what is essential?
  
• Cancer Focus
• Institutional Commitment
• Organizational Capability
• Facilities
• Center Director
• Interdisciplinary Coordination and Collaboration

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Essential Characteristics of a CCC

• Cancer Focus
• Scientifically strong basic cancer research
• R01/NCI mechanism
• Where are you on recruiting funded cancer
  researchers?
  
• Program coordination
• P01, SPORE
• CCC Programs
• Clinical strong clinical research
• Multidisciplinary clinics
• Investigator-initiated clinical research
  (funded)
  
• Population Sciences

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Essential Characteristics of a CCC

• Institutional Commitment
• MSI Parent Institutionkey to CCC effort
• MSI leadership recognition of a formal
  organizational unit that is outside of
  Departmental, College structure
  
• Developmental/Lobby Officer
• Recruitment/Facilities/
• Do you have commitment for the formal development
  of a strategic plan?

13
Essential Characteristics of a CCC

• Organizational Capabilities
• Reporting Structure-critical
• It is essential that the CCC Director answers to
  a University official that is outside of
  Department/College structure
  
• Central clinical facility-critical for conduction
  clinical research. Consider a Department of
  Oncology
  
• Matrix science structure-can be across other
  universities
  
• Internal advisory board should include leaders
  from all interested institutions-key for
  recruitment

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Essential Characteristics of a CCC

• Facilities
• Now-you need designated relatively NEW space to
  attract NCI funded investigators. 20,000 ASF
  would be a good start for now---where are you
  today?
• Plan a central Clinical Cancer Facility
• Plan a Cancer Research Building
• 200,000 ASF
• Ignites philanthropic support

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Essential Characteristics of a CCC

• Director
• Current U54 needs outstanding leadership
• Future needs for CCC at MSI
• Scientifically prominent cancer researcher
• Director of Oncology?
• Associate directors
• Clinical, basic, population, administration
• ? education

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Essential Characteristics of a CCC

• Interdisciplinary Coordination and Collaboration
• Is there organizational evidence of enhanced
  interactions between scientists and
  administrators within and across MSI and with
  counterparts at current CCC?

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Success

• Regular input from qualified external advisors,
  with buy-in from your institutional leadership
  and documentation of your willingness to change
  is critical to the success of your centers
  development

18
U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Administration
• UPRCC administrator and office equipment?
• Infrastructure
• PSC requested documentation of MDACCs tissue
  banking experts being involved in establishing
  tissue bank at UPRCC within current guidelines
  
• UPRCC IRB-PSC requested data on space, personnel,
  budget, volume in order to recommend changes for
  improvement
  
• Access to www of MDACC for CANCER journal access
• UPR Graduate School Web of Science journal
  access
  

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Recruitment
• two new UPRCC hires go to MDACC for training,
  e.g.
  
• grant writing workshop (NCI) and grant writing
  experience at MDACC with a designated person.
  The
  
• PSC strongly advises the biostatistician go to
  MDA for a month. The PSC strongly advises to
  assemble all
  
• UPR deans of the relevant colleges, and
  department chairs, to determine the most
  efficient mechanism for recruitment of SENIOR
  faculty with a cancer focus

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Education
• Did the first grant writing workshop in
  scientific writing occur in March 03 at UPR?
  Attendance?
  
• Are Puerto Rican fellows in oncology provided two
  years of laboratory training?
  
• Do we have minority applicants for MDACC T32s?
• Have other colleges and universities on the
  island been invited to participate in any of the
  educational endeavors?
  

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• Drs. Edna Mora (UPRCC) and Ana Tari (MDACC)
• Have realtime and western blot technologies been
  transferred to UPR?
  
• Has an additional senior mentor at MDACC been
  identified for Dr. Mora?
  
• Are we on target for submission of a draft K22
  to Dr. Caligiuri, Springfield, and additional PSC
  member by October 1, 2003? Formal submission
  by February 04.
• Has Dr. Mora been removed from administrative
  duties within the Dept of Surgery and within the
  UPRCC, as recommended by the PSC in order for her
  to learn molecular techniques first hand?

22
U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• Dr. Coras (UPRCC) and Valeros (MDACC) pilot
  project
  
• Drs. Cora and Valero committed to full enrollment
  and preliminary presentation of data within one
  year (January, 2004) for the PSC, after which the
  PSC will consider expansion for full project
  funding.
• Are we on target?

23
U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• Head and Neck Project of Drs. Baez (UPRCC) and
  Strom (MDACC). Several problems were
  identified
  
• Support staff for study enrollment and
  questionnaire completion-problem was to be
  addressed by Drs. Lopez-Enriquez and Carlo
  
• Insufficient accrual-researchers were to seek
  participation from physicians and patients
  outside of University---done?
  
• Current enrollment (target 200) and anticipated
  date of complete enrollment?
  
• Has Dr. Baez been relieved of some/all of her
  clinical administrative duties?
  
• Where are we with R01 submission? Target date?

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• Acute promyelocytic leukemia with Drs. Alberto
  Lopez-Enriquez (UPRCC) done in collaboration with
  Dr. Lopez-Berestein of MDACC. Pilot Project.
  
• Researchers were gathering incidence as well as
  establishing a real definition of Hispanic in
  the context of APL.
  
• The collaboration was extending to Italy and
  Spain. By January 2004 they will have data on
  these patients to propose a project.
  
• They will plan to perform molecular genetic
  analysis of FLT3 to see if this is what is
  predicting outcome.
  
• STATUS UPDATE AT THIS TIME

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• Proposed Pilot Project Carmen Cruz, RN and Prof.
  Ilsa Centeno (UPRCC) proposed to initiate an
  education/training effort in field of oncology
  for selected students from one public and one
  private high school in Puerto Rico.
• Informal presentation was well-received by PSC in
  January of 2003
  
• A formal proposal was to be submitted to the PSC
  for consideration
  
• Investigation of other such programs on the
  island and at MDACC was to be undertaken
  

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• Proposed Pilot Project Dr. Margarita Irizarry
  (UPRCC) and Dr. Tim McDonnel (MDACC)
  
• Proposal to address the disparity of prostate
  cancer survival between Caucasians and Hispanics
  
• Recommended that Drs. Izizarry and McDonnel apply
  for the upcoming RFA to be issued by the U54
  leadership

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• Research
• RFA for Proposed Pilot Projects
• It was recommended by the Chief of Comprehensive
  Minority Biomedical Branch at the NCI that the
  mechanism for soliciting and prioritizing pilot
  projects could be improved by starting the
  process earlier and advertising widely, thereby
  creating greater opportunity for identifying the
  best projects.
• Template provided and subsequently reviewed by
  Dr. Caligiuri
  
• Status update requested on plans for solicitation

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U54 Progress Review, August 28, 2003

• UPR Presidential Special Task Force to assess the
  feasibility of a Comprehensive Cancer Center in
  Puerto Rico
  
• Update