Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG)

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The mission of the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center (SJCCC) at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH) is to advance research and cures for pediatric cancer, the leading cause of disease-related death in children aged 1 to 14 years. For more than 4 decades, we have pursued this mission with the support of a Cancer Center Support Grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). We remain the only NCI-designated Cancer Center that is dedicated solely to the research and treatment of pediatric malignancies. As such, we serve as a national and international resource for health care providers, children with cancer, and their families. Through the support of the American Lebanese and Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), a separate organization whose sole purpose is to raise money in support of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH), we receive robust institutional support. A total of 75% percent of institutional space and annual budget are invested in the SJCCC. We propose 5 multidisciplinary research Programs that are organized with the specific intent of translating basic science discoveries into curative therapies for children with cancer, while minimizing long-term side effects: our Cancer Biology Program (CBP), which embeds basic cancer research within the heart of the SJCCC, facilitating direct interaction with the disease-oriented Programs and the major laboratory resources in the Center; our 3 disease-oriented Programs, focused on innovative translational and clinical research in Developmental Biology and Solid Tumors (DBSTP), Hematological Malignancies (HMP), and Neurobiology and Brain Tumors (NBTP); and our Cancer Control and Survivorship Program (CCSP), which strives to translate discoveries into effective strategies to avert or mitigate treatment-related complications and improve the quality of life for survivors of pediatric cancer. Research by our 114 members is supported by 9 Shared Resources, 1 developing Shared Resource, and an extraordinary clinical research infrastructure. During the previous funding period, a new Director was recruited and a new 8-goal strategic plan was launched for the SJCCC. A total of 32,522 clinical trial enrollments occurred at the Center during the current funding period, of which 60% were to SJCCC investigator-initiated studies. External peer-reviewed trials, many which are SJCCC member-led, accounted for another 38% of enrollments. In the last 12 months we were supported by $34.3 million (direct cost) in extramural funding ($30.3.5 million peer-reviewed; $3.9 million non–peer-reviewed). Since the prior renewal, SJCCC members published more than 2,100 manuscripts, which includes a marked increase in publications in the highest-level journals. Our campus has grown in size by 23% and SJCRH and ALSAC have committed to more than $150 million in new investment to support the SJCCC strategic plan. Despite strategically reducing our membership by 27% to more tightly focus on cancer research and our strategic plan, NCI funding has increased by 9.3%, other NIH funding by 9.5%, and our other peer-reviewed funding has increased by 34%.