New Jersey Cancer Center Helps Develop Nationwide Prostate Consortium

Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 06 Oct 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Robert S. DiPaola, MD, the director of The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ), has been awarded $1.6 million by the Department of Defense (DoD) to fund CINJ's participation in a nationwide consortium of 14 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Centers engaged in innovative and collaborative research to tackle prostate cancer. Dr. DiPaola notes, as New Jersey's only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, CINJ will be able to significantly expand clinical trial options for patients with prostate cancer across the state thanks to this support. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, and strikes one in six men in this country. In New Jersey alone, 6,000 new cases of the disease are expected this year with 192,000 new cases nationally. DiPaola, an internationally known expert on prostate cancer who is also a professor of medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, said, "These statistics indicate that prostate cancer is common and complex. By combining the efforts of NCI Cancer Centers from multiple states, we will be able to maximize our ability to defeat this disease. We are grateful for this support from the Department of Defense."

The DoD Clinical Consortium grant (W81XWH-09-1-0145) is part of the DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program, which awards centers with scientifically outstanding prostate cancer programs. The funding will support CINJ in developing prostate cancer research studies that can be implemented by the other participating members. The mission of the consortium is to create and continuously improve a multi-center operational environment that enables and promotes collaborative cancer research both within and among institutions.

DiPaola, who has served for the past six years as chair of the Genitourinary Committee of the national multi-center clinical trials cooperative group known as the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, notes the unique resources available to CINJ make it an ideal participant in this venture. "Because of CINJ's considerable experience in coordinating and contributing to multi-center studies, we feel confident that we will be able to have a significant impact on the consortium through clinical trial accrual and the creation of additional studies based on the unique laboratory science being conducted at CINJ," he said.

The 13 other participating institutions are: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Oregon Health and Science University, the University of California-San Francisco, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, and Wayne State University. The five-year award period runs through March 31, 2014.

Source
Cancer Institute of New Jersey