Dana-Farber Cancer Institute awarded $11M to intercept and cure deadly cancers

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has been awarded more than $11 million in grants to intercept and find cures to some of the deadliest cancers as part of an initiative designed to link some of the top cancer researchers in the world.

The work is funded by Break Through Cancer through $50 million in grants to teams at five cancer research centers: Dana-Farber, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The new model for collaboration enables researchers to boldly tackle some of the greatest challenges in cancer, Dana Farber said in an announcement of the grant. Break Through Cancer’s approach will help overcome barriers to teamwork among multiple institutions by streamlining systems and using advanced analytics to share data in real time.

“Break Through Cancer has created a collaborative research model to accelerate progress in some of the most challenging types of cancer,” said Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, president and CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a member of Break Through Cancer’s board of directors.

“This unique initiative will allow many of the world’s leading cancer scientists and clinicians to work together seamlessly to drive new discoveries, advance promising new therapies and ultimately deliver improved outcomes for patients,” Glimcher said in a statement.

All Break Through Cancer-funded projects will enable researchers and physicians from each institution to work collaboratively in real time.

New technology will make data-sharing easier. Reducing the day-to-day barriers to collaborating between institutions, such as contract negotiations, data sharing, intellectual property and rights to authorship, will facilitate faster discoveries.

“Accelerating the pace of discovery requires bringing basic, translational and clinical investigators together in ‘one room,’ and Break Through Cancer’s model allows us to do just that,” said Dr. Alan D’Andrea, director of the Center for DNA Damage and Repair at Dana-Farber, where he also heads the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers.

“Working collaboratively, we will be tackling several of the most challenging, complex, and lethal cancers, and I believe that this work will be transformational to cancer research as a whole,” D’Andrea continued.

Among the areas the project will focus on are: intercepting ovarian cancer, targeting residual disease in ovarian cancer and helping to conquer pancreatic cancer, an effort that is happening in partnership with the Lustgarten Foundation in Woodbury, N.Y.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/wKGmZMz