Personalized for the most deadly type of brain tumor vaccine shows promise

History showed itself from the patients with treatment of patients with recurrent glioblastoma made an experimental vaccine (GBM) resection tumor survival rates improve, alone, received the standard care patients compared to this vaccine has been published in the journal of neuro-oncology, accompanied by an editorial to emphasize the importance of the trial phase 2 according to the analysis of the test. Phase 2 trials, Northwestern Feinberg School and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center enrolled 41 conducted by adult recurrent tumor cases 2007-2011, from the researchers.

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China investigates after vaccine suspected in seven deaths

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese health authorities are investigating after seven infants died following inoculation with a hepatitis B vaccine, state media reported on Monday.

China has been beset by a series of product safety scandals over the past few years.

At least six children died in 2008 after drinking milk contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine, and there have also been reports of children dying or becoming seriously ill from faulty encephalitis, hepatitis B and rabies vaccines.

State news agency Xinhua said that of the seven deaths from the hepatitis B vaccine in the latest case, four were in the southern province of Guangdong. The other cases were in the provinces of Hunan and Sichuan.

The official China Daily said that all hospitals using the vaccine, made by Shenzhen-based BioKangtai, had been ordered to take it off their shelves while the Health Ministry investigates the company's products and the deaths.

The company said in a statement last week, carried by state media, said that it rigorously followed safety rules but that they were testing the batches suspected of causing the deaths.

The topic has been widely discussed on China's popular Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, with many people worried about the safety of China's vaccines and calling on the government to make more information public.

"Why was this allowed onto the market? The government needs to come clean about this," wrote one Weibo user.

Many Chinese people are suspicious that the government tries to cover up bad news about health problems, despite assurances of transparency. In 2003, the government initially tried to cover-up the outbreak of the SARS virus.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Hui Li; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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H. pylori vaccine shows promise in mouse studies

Dec. 19, 2013 — Researchers from Southern Medical University in Guangdong, Guangzhou, China, have developed an oral vaccine against Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria responsible for peptic ulcers and some forms of gastric cancer, and have successfully tested it in mice. The research is published ahead of print in the journal Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

The investigators constructed a live recombinant bacterial vaccine, expressing the H. pylori antigen, adhesin Hp0410, in the food-grade bacterium, Lactobacillus acidophilus. They then used it to orally vaccinate the mice.

The vaccine elicited specific anti-Hp0410 IgG antibodies in serum, and showed "a significant increase" in the level of protection against gastric Helicobacter infection, according to the report. When assayed, following challenge with H. pylori, immunized mice had significantly lower bacterial loads than non-immunized mice.

H. pylori is a class 1 human carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization. It causes gastritis, peptic ulcers, stomach cancer, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. Antibiotic therapy is complex, unsuccessful in some patients (particularly in developing countries) and relapse is common. A vaccine against H. pylori could circumvent these difficulties.

L. acidophilus, a bacterium which is common in yogurt cultures, has distinct advantages as an oral vaccine antigen delivery vehicle. It is safe and nontoxic. It resists the stomach's acidity and tolerates bile, all of which aids in enabling it to survive in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract for more than 72 hours. Additionally, it adheres to, and elicits an immune response from the GI tract mucosa.

The current first-line treatment option for H. pylori infection includes two antibiotics and a proton pump inhibitor, but is ineffective in roughly 20 percent of patients.

"The high cost of treatment, noncompliance, and antibiotic resistance are the most important reasons," says first author Fan Hongying.

Roughly 15-30 percent of patients relapse quickly, she says, noting that after treatment, H. pylori may be resupplied to the stomach from a reservoir in the mouth. A vaccine would circumvent these problems.

"Our results collectively indicate that adhesin Hp0410 is a promising candidate vaccine antigen and recombinant Lactobacillus acidophilus expressing Hp0410 is likely to constitute an effective, low-cost live bacterial vaccine against H. pylori," says Hongying.

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Universal flu vaccine 'blueprint'

22 September 2013 Last updated at 13:00 ETBy James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Scientists say they have made a significant leap towards creating a vaccine that would protect against every form of flu.

The influenza virus is a constantly shifting target so seasonal flu vaccines rapidly become useless and new ones are needed each year.

A team at Imperial College London say they have made a "blueprint" for a universal flu vaccine.

Their discovery is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Influenza is able to change the proteins that protrude from the surface of the virus as readily as people change outfits.

However, the material on the inside is common to many strains of flu. Vaccine researchers believe targeting the core of the virus may be the way to develop a universal vaccine.

A specific part of the immune system, called T-cells, is thought to be able to recognise proteins in the core. A team at Imperial used the 2009 swine flu pandemic to test the theory.

Milder symptoms

Swine flu was a new virus from a mix of bird and pig flu.

The outer shell should have been a completely new experience to the immune system, but the core may have been encountered before in other flu viruses.

The team compared levels of one kind of T-cells at the start of the pandemic with symptoms of flu in 342 staff and students at the university.

They showed that the higher the levels of the T-cells a patient had, the milder their symptoms were.

Researchers then teased out the specific part of the immune system that offered some pandemic flu protection and which part of the virus it was attacking.

Prof Ajit Lalvani, who led the study, told the BBC: "It's a blueprint for a vaccine. We know the exact subgroup of the immune system and we've identified the key fragments in the internal core of the virus. These should be included in a vaccine.

"In truth, in this case it is about five years [away from a vaccine]. We have the know-how, we know what needs to be in the vaccine and we can just get on and do it."

'Long journey'

This would be a distinct approach compared with other forms of vaccination, such as the MMR jab. These trigger the immune system to produce antibodies that can attack an invader.

The prize could be huge. Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people each year and new pandemics have the potential to take doctors by surprise and kill large numbers of people.

Yet the researchers admit it is "generally harder" to develop a T-cell vaccine than provoke an antibody response. The challenge will be to get a big enough T-cell response to offer protection and a response that will last.

Prof John Oxford, of Queen Mary University of London, said: "This sort of effect can't be that powerful or we'd never have pandemics. It's not going to solve all the problems of influenza, but could add to the range of vaccines.

"It's going to be a long journey from this sort of paper to translating it into a vaccine that works."

Prof Sarah Gilbert, who is developing a universal flu vaccine at the

Jenner Institute in Oxford, said: "Live attenuated influenza vaccines which are given by nasal spray and will be used in children in the UK from this autumn are much better at increasing the number of influenza-specific T cells, but these vaccines only work in young children who haven't yet had much exposure to influenza virus, so we need an alternative approach for adults.

"The new publication contains information on the precise characteristics of the influenza-specific T cells which were protective, and this information will be useful in monitoring the immune response to vaccination when testing novel influenza vaccines which are designed to provide protection against pandemic as well as seasonal influenza viruses."

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Scientists closer to universal flu vaccine after pandemic 'natural experiment'

Sep. 22, 2013 — Scientists have moved closer to developing a universal flu vaccine after using the 2009 pandemic as a natural experiment to study why some people seem to resist severe illness.

Researchers at Imperial College London asked volunteers to donate blood samples just as the swine flu pandemic was getting underway and report any symptoms they experienced over the next two flu seasons.

They found that those who avoided severe illness had more CD8 T cells, a type of virus-killing immune cell, in their blood at the start of the pandemic.

They believe a vaccine that stimulates the body to produce more of these cells could be effective at preventing flu viruses, including new strains that cross into humans from birds and pigs, from causing serious disease.

The findings are published in Nature Medicine.

Professor Ajit Lalvani from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "New strains of flu are continuously emerging, some of which are deadly, and so the Holy Grail is to create a universal vaccine that would be effective against all strains of flu."

Today's flu vaccines make the immune system produce antibodies that recognise structures on the surface of the virus to prevent infection with the most prevalent circulating strains. But they are usually one step behind as they have to be changed each year as new viruses with different surface structures evolve.

Previously, experimental models had suggested that T cells may protect against flu symptoms but until now this idea has not been tested in humans during a pandemic.

Professor Lalvani's team rapidly recruited 342 staff and students at Imperial to take part in their study in autumn 2009. The volunteers donated blood samples and were given nasal swabs. They were sent emails every three weeks asking them to fill in a survey about their health. If they experienced flu symptoms, they took a nasal swab and sent it back to the lab.

They found that those who fell more severely ill with flu had fewer CD8 T cells in their blood, and those who caught flu but had no symptoms or only mild symptoms had more of these cells.

Professor Lalvani said, "The immune system produces these CD8 T cells in response to usual seasonal flu. Unlike antibodies, they target the core of the virus, which doesn't change, even in new pandemic strains. The 2009 pandemic provided a unique natural experiment to test whether T cells could recognise, and protect us against, new strains that we haven't encountered before and to which we lack antibodies.

"Our findings suggest that by making the body produce more of this specific type of CD8 T cell, you can protect people against symptomatic illness. This provides the blueprint for developing a universal flu vaccine.

"We already know how to stimulate the immune system to make CD8 T cells by vaccination. Now that we know these T cells may protect, we can design a vaccine to prevent people getting symptoms and transmitting infection to others. This could curb seasonal flu annually and protect people against future pandemics."

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'Live vaccine' for gonorrhea prevents reinfection

Sep. 18, 2013 — A new gonorrhea treatment, based on an anti-cancer therapy developed by a Buffalo startup company, has successfully eliminated gonococcal infection from female mice and prevented reinfection, according to research published today by University at Buffalo scientists in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Through TherapyX Inc., an early stage biotech company in Buffalo, the UB researchers have a $300,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant to develop the technology to treat and prevent gonorrhea infection. UB's Office for Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach has filed for patent protection.

More than 100 million new gonococcal infections occur each year around the globe, according to the World Health Organization, which warns of a pending gonorrhea crisis due to soaring drug resistance rates. The infection can be asymptomatic but it also can cause extremely painful urination in men and pelvic inflammatory disease, which can lead to infertility and ectopic pregnancy, in women. It may also make individuals more susceptible to infection with HIV/AIDS.

"We developed the concept that gonococcal infection seems to inhibit specific adaptive immune responses, which is, in part, why people can become infected with it multiple times," explains Michael W. Russell, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and senior author on the paper. "It turns out that gonococcal infection very cleverly controls the immune system, inducing responses the bacterium can fight and suppressing the responses that it cannot fight."

In considering how to modify the immune response to gonococcal infection, Russell became intrigued with an anti-cancer therapy being developed by a UB medical school colleague.

Nejat K. Egilmez, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at UB, and a co-author on the current paper, developed NanoCap, a sustained-release nanoparticle treatment that uses Interleukin-12, a cytokine or protein that helps stimulate an immune response against tumors that normally suppress immunity. Egilmez co-founded TherapyX Inc. to commercialize this and other drug formulations.

"We had the idea that maybe these IL-12 microspheres that they were developing against tumors could be used to generate an immune response against gonococcal infection as well," says Russell. "This research proves that they can."

The current study describes how the IL-12 microspheres, administered intravaginally in mice, resulted in the development of a specific adaptive immune response -- development of antibodies specific to N. gonorrhoeae -- and clearance of the infection within days. One month later, attempts to reinfect these mice with the bacterium failed, demonstrating that the animals had retained the ability to fight reinfection.

"With this treatment, we have reversed the immunosuppression that gonococcal infection normally causes and allowed an effective immune response to develop," says Russell. "It could be argued that when the IL-12 microspheres are administered this way, they serve as an adjuvant that, in effect, converts the gonococcal infection into a live vaccine, thus essentially vaccinating the very population that is at risk for repeat infections."

And because it may circumvent the growing resistance of this bacterium and others to antibiotics, this treatment method also may open up new approaches for the development of non-resistant treatments for other infectious diseases, Russell says.

"Here, we are delivering cytokines locally right to the site of infection," he says. "If we can use this method to teach the immune system to generate the right kind of response to other recalcitrant infections, then we could have a new approach to treat a range of infectious diseases without stimulating drug resistance."

The immunity developed in the mice lasted for one month. Russell plans to see if the immunity can last longer in mice and then ultimately, to test it in humans.

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Agenus brain cancer vaccine improves survival in mid-stage study

(Reuters) - Biotechnology company Agenus Inc said its experimental brain cancer vaccine increased the survival of patients without their cancer worsening in a mid-stage trial, compared with the standard treatment.

Agenus shares jumped as much as 34 percent on the Nasdaq on Monday morning.

The vaccine, codenamed HSPPC-96, showed an almost 18 month median progression-free survival — a 160 percent increase versus current standard treatment of radiation combined with chemotherapy drug temozolomide.

The vaccine was being used in combination with the standard treatment to treat patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive type of tumor which affects the brain.

Agenus plans to discuss a late-stage trial with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, based on the trial data.

A preliminary analysis of the study in May had showed that the vaccine had a 146 percent increase in progression-free survival when compared with the standard-of-care.

"We are impressed by the data and look forward to feedback from the FDA regarding next steps," Roth Capital Partners analyst Joseph Pantginis wrote in a note, raising the price target on the stock to $15.

It was up 22 percent at $3.34 at midday after touching a high of $3.68.

(Reporting By Adithya Venkatesan; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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Could E. Coli Vaccine for Cows Cut Human Infections?

TUESDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Vaccinating cattle against E. coli bacteria could cut the number of human infections by 85 percent, far higher than previous estimates, British scientists say.

The researchers reviewed the way that E. coli is transmitted from cattle to humans, noting that the risk of infection is particularly significant during the brief periods when cattle are "super-shedding" extremely large amounts of the bacteria in their feces.

"As far as we can assess, the major risk to humans is from those animals that are shedding the bug heavily," said Stuart Reid, senior study author and a principal at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London. "If the vaccine has an impact on these animals at that time, the risk to humans is disproportionately reduced."

Previous research has predicted that vaccination of cattle could reduce E. coli risk by 50 percent, but those studies did not take into account the effect of vaccination on "super-shedding," the researchers said.

The new study of Scottish cattle appeared in the Sept. 16-20 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

E. coli infection causes severe gastrointestinal illness in humans, in some cases leading to death. It is spread by consuming contaminated food or water, most often ground beef.

Nearly 1,100 confirmed cases of E. coli infection occurred in the United States in 2012, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They led to 275 hospitalizations and two deaths. The CDC said that for every reported case of E. coli, there are probably 26 more that go undiagnosed.

Vaccines against E. coli have been approved for cattle in the United States and Canada, but farmers have not shown much interest in using them, the study authors said.

Farmers aren't vaccinating cattle against E. coli because cattle don't get sick from the bacteria, said Mike Doyle, a distinguished professor of food microbiology and director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

"The farmer doesn't get any bang for the buck from a production perspective," Doyle said. "The vaccine doesn't help the animal grow more healthy."

Government intervention likely would be required for widespread vaccination to occur. "Unless all farmers were required to vaccinate by the government, it wouldn't be cost effective or cost competitive for them to do that," Doyle said.

Such intervention should be seriously considered, said lead study author Dr. Louise Matthews, a senior research fellow in the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine at the University of Glasgow.

"Treating cattle in order to reduce the number of human cases [of E. Coli] certainly makes sense from a human health perspective, and, while more work is needed to calculate the cost of a vaccination program, the public health justification must be taken seriously," Matthews said.

The researchers started their work first by identifying the genetic marker associated with E. coli super-shedding in cattle. They then studied the relationship between cattle predisposed to super-shed E. coli and human outbreaks of the illness, concluding that the types of E. coli linked to super-shedding cause the vast majority of cases.

The researchers now are working to develop even more effective vaccines that would further reduce the risk of E. coli outbreaks.

Doyle warned against generalizing the Scottish results to the United States, however, noting that farming methods are very different between the two. For example, Scottish beef is mostly grass fed.

"You can't automatically extrapolate what they find over there to what we have here," he said. "There's probably more research that would need to be done to see how useful or relevant this information is to American farmers."

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the results are intriguing. He said, however, that he's concerned that a vaccine might reduce emphasis on the common-sense food-safety methods that now provide effective protection against foodborne illness.

"I do want to emphasize [that] it does not replace careful monitoring of animal health and surveillance of the food-safety process as animals move through the pipeline to become our food," Benjamin said. "It also doesn't replace good food safety. You're still going to have to wash your hands. You're still going to have to make sure your food is prepared properly."

More information

For more about foodborne pathogens, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Copyright c 2013?HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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Measles cases on the rise in US, experts encourage vaccine

Sep. 13, 2013 — Prior to the use of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination, hundreds of those infected with the measles would die yearly, tens of thousands would be hospitalized and around 1,000 cases would result in chronic disability. Decades later, after believing that endemic transmission of this highly contagious illness was eradicated in the United States in 2000, cases are on the rise again, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It is heartbreaking to watch something happen that is completely preventable,” said David Kimberlin, M.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham professor of pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ liaison to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

“This would not be happening if people trusted us and got their measles vaccinations,” said Kimberlin, who sees patients at Children's of Alabama. “Someone eventually will die from measles, leaving many asking why it couldn't have been prevented, but it can be.”

Kimberlin said measles cases are making it into the United States through international travelers, but it is finding fertile ground in communities because of the percentage of people in those communities who are not vaccinated against measles.

The CDC reports 159 cases between Jan. 1 and Aug. 24, 2013, with 82 percent of the cases in unvaccinated persons, and 9 percent with unknown vaccination status. Ninety-nine percent of the cases were import-related.

“It is like tossing a lit match on dry grass,” Kimberlin said. “The message to take home from this is quite simple: get vaccinated against all vaccine-preventable diseases and be protected from them, or do not get vaccinated and run the very-real risk of getting those diseases and possibly dying.”

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AIDS vaccine candidate appears to completely clear virus from the body in monkeys

Sep. 11, 2013 — An HIV/AIDS vaccine candidate developed by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University appears to have the ability to completely clear an AIDS-causing virus from the body. The promising vaccine candidate is being developed at OHSU's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute. It is being tested through the use of a non-human primate form of HIV, called simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, which causes AIDS in monkeys. Following further development, it is hoped an HIV-form of the vaccine candidate can soon be tested in humans.

These research results were published online today by the journal Nature. The results will also appear in a future print version of the publication.

"To date, HIV infection has only been cured in a very small number of highly-publicized but unusual clinical cases in which HIV-infected individuals were treated with anti-viral medicines very early after the onset of infection or received a stem cell transplant to combat cancer," said Louis Picker, M.D., associate director of the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute. "This latest research suggests that certain immune responses elicited by a new vaccine may also have the ability to completely remove HIV from the body."

The Picker lab's approach involves the use of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a common virus already carried by a large percentage of the population. In short, the researchers discovered that pairing CMV with SIV had a unique effect. They found that a modified version of CMV engineered to express SIV proteins generates and indefinitely maintains so-called "effector memory" T-cells that are capable of searching out and destroying SIV-infected cells.

T-cells are a key component of the body's immune system, which fights off disease, but T-cells elicited by conventional vaccines of SIV itself are not able to eliminate the virus. The SIV-specific T-cells elicited by the modified CMV were different. About 50 percent of monkeys given highly pathogenic SIV after being vaccinated with this vaccine became infected with SIV but over time eliminated all trace of SIV from the body. In effect, the hunters of the body were provided with a much better targeting system and better weapons to help them find and destroy an elusive enemy.

"Through this method we were able to teach the monkey's body to better 'prepare its defenses' to combat the disease," explained Picker. "Our vaccine mobilized a T-cell response that was able to overtake the SIV invaders in 50 percent of the cases treated. Moreover, in those cases with a positive response, our testing suggests SIV was banished from the host. We are hopeful that pairing our modified CMV vector with HIV will lead to a similar result in humans."

The Picker lab is now investigating the possible reasons why only a subset of the animals treated had a positive response in hopes that the effectiveness of the vaccine candidate can be further boosted.

This research was funded by several grants from the National Institutes of Health, funding from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and a CAVD grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Experimental Melanoma Vaccine Shows Promise in Study

THURSDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Six of seven advanced melanoma patients had a positive response to an experimental vaccine, a finding that shows promise for personalized skin cancer treatment, researchers report.

The vaccine also slowed tumor progression in three of the patients, according to the investigators at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

This cutting-edge approach -- considered by many the future of cancer treatment -- uses a patient's own cells to enhance an immune response to the attacking cancer cells and slow their growth, the study authors explained.

"This is personalized immunotherapy," said senior researcher Dr. Gerald Linette, an associate professor of medicine and neurosurgery.

Melanoma is the deadliest of skin cancers. Each year in the United States more than 76,000 cases of melanoma are diagnosed, and nearly 10,000 die from the disease, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

The immune system plays a part in melanoma, Linette said, and the researchers wanted to see if a molecule called interleukin 12p70 could mount an immune response against the cancer.

"The results show that, in fact, interleukin 12p70 was very important in controlling the disease," he said. "It promoted a response where T cells of the immune system act directly against the melanoma."

Some patients make a lot of interleukin 12p70, and those are the patients who did well. But some patients make very little or no interleukin 12p70, and those are the patients who did worse, Linette said. For those patients, another way of enhancing the response will have to be tried, he said.

The study, published online July 11 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, discusses use of the vaccine on seven patients with recently diagnosed stage IV cancer, meaning the cancer had spread to other areas of the body.

Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said, "This is a great first step."

Techniques such as this will be standard some day, she believes. "We are at the infancy of this, but this is going to end up being the way we cure cancer," Green added.

Currently, the prognosis is bleak for late-stage melanoma, Green noted. "If you have advanced melanoma, there is no treatment," she said.

The experimental vaccine is made from a patient's dendritic cells, which is a type of immune cell. The researchers modified the cells to increase production of interleukin 12p70, which stimulates a robust immune response to the cancer, Linette explained.

The research team was able to activate these dendritic cells before giving them back to the patient, he said.

The vaccine seems safer than earlier attempts, but it will be years before such an approach might be put into practice. For now, no clinical trials are planned, Linette said.

"Scientists have been testing vaccines in cancer patients for about 15 years, and the results have been rather discouraging," Linette added. "It's going to take at least five to 10 years more testing before scientists agree what's the best dendritic cell vaccine."

More information

For more information on melanoma, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

SOURCES: Gerald Linette, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, medicine and neurosurgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Mo.; Michele Green, M.D., dermatologist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; July 11, 2013, Journal of Clinical Investigation, online

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African-American women less likely to receive HPV vaccine than whites, even with access to health care

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Even with access to health care, African-American women are less likely to receive the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), which reduces the risk for cervical cancer, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (home of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute). The findings, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, suggest a need for health care providers to both bolster HPV vaccination recommendations and address negative attitudes toward the vaccine among this vulnerable patient population.

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Among the research institutions NCI funds across the United States, it currently designates 68 as Cancer Centers. Largely based in research universities, these facilities are home to many of the NCI-supported scientists who conduct a wide range of intense, laboratory research into cancer’s origins and development. The Cancer Centers Program also focuses on trans-disciplinary research, including population science and clinical research. The centers’ research results are often at the forefront of studies in the cancer field.

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