The mission of the Chemoprevention Program is the discovery, development and testing of potential chemoprevention agents, with the ultimate goal being the reduction of cancer incidence through chemoprevention.

Program Leader (pictured left)
Howard Bailey, MD

Co-Leader
Hasan Mukhtar, PhD

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The members of this Program collaboratively pursue basic laboratory studies seeking potential agents to intervne in neoplastic development; translational and population-based studies to identify at-risk populations and measures of benefit; and clinical trials to determine the validity of biomarkers and the effectiveness of chemopreventive agents.

Program Profile for Full Members

Full Membership:
17 members
12 departments
   4 schools

Project Funding as of 10/2009 (direct costs):

Peer-reviewed	$ 4.7M	19
NCI	$2.5M	11
NIH	$2.0M	7
ACS	$0M	0
NSF	$0M	0
Other	$0.1M	1
Non peer-reviewed	$1.4M	3
Total	$6.0M	22

Scientific Goals

The overall goal of the Chemoprevention Program is the discovery, development, and testing of potential chemoprevention agents. Members of this Program are collaboratively pursuing basic laboratory studies of neoplastic development and potential intervention agents, translational and population-based studies to identify at-risk populations and measures of benefit, and clinical trials to determine validity of biomarkers and effectiveness of chemopreventive agents. The objectives of this Program will be met through the following specific aims and goals:

Modeling and Targets

• The development of model systems that allow efficient and accurate study of neoplastic progression and directed interventions.
• Identification of new targets for chemoprevention agent development.

Drug Development

• The identification and study of new agents for chemoprevention drug development.

Biomarkers and Populations

• The exploration of markers or characteristics that identify populations most likely to benefit from chemoprevention.
• The discovery or development of biomarkers that accurately assess perturbation of the neoplastic process by potential chemopreventive agents.

Clinical Testing

• The design and conduct of clinical trials evaluating potential intermediate biomarkers of prevention and chemopreventive agents.

Significant Recent Discoveries

• Development of the first Brca 1 and Brca 2 knockout rat model for the study of mammary carcinogenesis. (Nature Biotech 21:625-7, 2003)
• Definition of the prostate cancer preventive properties of green tea and exploration of biomarkers and mechanisms of this effect. (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:10350-5. 2001, and Cancer Res 64:8715-22, 2004)
• First report of the potent antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects of pomegranate fruit extract on human prostate cancer cells and the potential therapeutic and cancer prevention implications. (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 41:14813-18, 2005)
• Mathematical modeling of array data to optimize pooling of biological samples in gene expression microarray studies. (Stat Med 22:3899-914, 2003, and Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:4252-7, 2005).
• “Unbiased” (not related to function) assessments of genomic regions affecting breast cancer susceptibility through initial Quantitative Trail Loci mapping methods. (Genetics 57:331-9, 2001, and Biometrics 2006, in press.)
• Completion of a Phase III DFMO skin cancer prevention trial, the largest single institution. (334 subjects accrued in 2 years) skin cancer prevention study. (Preliminary results presented at AACR 2005, Carbone et al.)

*Not mutually exclusive

Program Participants

Full Members