Unique partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory cited

After a 12-year, $70-million effort, UC Davis Cancer Center has achieved National Cancer Institute designation, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Gov. Gray Davis announced at a joint press conference Tuesday. The cancer center becomes one of just 20 NCI-designated centers west of the Mississippi and the only one between San Francisco and Portland, Ore.

"As the only NCI-designated cancer center in this region, UC Davis Cancer Center will have an impact that extends far beyond its own walls, across Northern and Central California," Boxer said via satellite. "UC Davis Cancer Center will serve as a valuable local, regional and national resource in our battle against this disease."

"California leads the nation in cancer control and prevention efforts, and it now has the nation's newest NCI-designated cancer center," Davis said in a special address at the press conference. "Designation recognizes that UC Davis Cancer Center, a program of the nation's finest public university system, has built itself into one of the nation's top cancer centers. It's an accomplishment we can all take pride in."

The NCI, the nation's top cancer organization, awards designation only to cancer institutions with the demonstrated potential to make major scientific contributions to the war against cancer. Granted after an exhaustive review process, the coveted distinction assures selected centers an ongoing, stable stream of federal research support to help them lead the nation's cancer research effort.

Besides prestige, the designation comes with a $1.2 million grant for each of the next three years. After that, officials expect to receive as much as $20 million a year in extra funding from the NCI and other sources. The NCI currently supports nearly $9 million a year in cancer research at UC Davis. Total outside funding for the university's integrated cancer research program now approaches more than $43.4 million.

UC Davis Cancer Center's year-old research partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the first of its kind in the nation, was a key factor in winning designation. In that partnership, physicians and scientists work to turn technology developed for the defense industry into new cancer therapies, detection methods and prevention strategies.

"UC Davis Cancer Center represents an enormous asset and resource," said Andrew C. von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute. "At UC Davis Cancer Center, discovery converges and, through center-based clinical trials, a seamless transfer of improved detection, diagnosis and treatment will reach patients in their local communities."

"The cancer patient is at the center of what we're doing," said Ralph W. deVere White, director of the UC Davis Cancer Center and an internationally respected prostate cancer researcher. "Our 12-year effort to achieve NCI designation has been an investment in resources that didn't exist in this region before, and that people in our area will be benefiting from for years to come."

UC Davis Health System invested $70 million in the cancer program over the past decade, recruiting 35 new research scientists and building the 52,000-square-foot Cancer Center and 50,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art cancer research facility. The LawrenceLivermore partnership contributed 40 additional scientists.

To become eligible for designation, cancer center officials had to organize widely dispersed cancer-research efforts into an efficient machine for bringing new ideas into the clinic. A massive cooperative cancer research effort was created by integrating cancer investigators from the university's world-class programs in veterinary medicine, comparative medicine (which focuses on studying similarities among humans and other animal species), biological sciences and agriculture and engineering, and linking this talent with the vast resources available at Lawrence Livermore. The result is a constellation of scientific expertise, focused on cancer, that doesn't exist at other centers.

Today the cancer center coordinates the work of more than 200 scientists actively engaged in cancer research at the UC Davis Medical Center campus in Sacramento, on the main campus in Davis and at Lawrence Livermore in Livermore, Calif. The scientists represent more than a dozen scientific disciplines.

"NCI designation will only increase collaborations among researchers, to the benefit of cancer patients throughout Northern and Central California," deVere White said.

Dennis Matthews, leader of the Medical Technology Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and associate director for technology development for the UC Davis Integrated Cancer Research Program, also expects increased opportunities for scientific collaboration. "This is a great opportunity for Lawrence Livermore," Matthews said. "It means that we physical scientists and engineers will have clinical scientists to guide us both in developing research instrumentation and in translating our findings into medical care. Because of this partnership, patients will get the latest technology."

Hundreds of cancer studies are in progress under the auspices of the UC Davis Integrated Cancer Research Program, including investigations into why prostate cancer is often more aggressive in African-American men; which compounds in fruits and vegetables protect against cancer; why Southeast Asian children in California have a three-fold higher incidence of Hodgkin's lymphoma compared to Caucasian children; and whether naturally occurring silica in California soil increases lung cancer risk.

Joint projects with Lawrence Livermore include:

• Proton-beam radiation therapy. Originally designed to determine whether bombs are still active, proton-beam accelerators can deliver a more potent and focused beam of radiation than that emitted by current radiotherapy machines. Proton-beam radiation kills more cancer cells, with less collateral damage to healthy tissues. It is expected to be the next generation in radiation treatment for cancer. Only size and cost are preventing its widespread use: A proton-beam machine costs more than $100 million to build, and takes up as much space as a basketball court. Just two are in current use nationwide for treating cancer. UC Davis Cancer Center and Lawrence Livermore scientists expect to build a proton-beam accelerator that will cost less than $10 million and fit in a typical radiation oncology clinic.
• Photonic probes. In other joint projects, scientists are testing a slender probe that uses light to determine whether a breast lump is cancerous. Also in development is a miniature photonic device that can detect cancer inside the bladder or other internal organs. Like the breast probe, this device promises to diagnose cancer instantly, sparing patients the need for surgical biopsy -- and the anxiety of waiting two to three days for biopsy results.
• Accelerator mass spectrometry investigations. Livermore scientists were the first in the world to use accelerator mass spectrometer technology for biological and cancer studies. Originally employed to detect the fission products of atomic tests, Livermore's giant AMS has become an invaluable tool for studying the effects of carcinogens on humans and animals. Researchers hope the technology also will prove useful for individualizing chemotherapy regimens, so that a patient gets exactly the needed amount of a drug - no more, no less.

The biggest names in cancer research carry NCI designation, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Nationwide, 61 cancer centers have achieved designation to date, including UC Davis. Nine are in California, seven of them concentrated between San Diego and Los Angeles. The other NCI-designated cancer center in Northern California is at UC San Francisco.

UC Davis Cancer Center serves a population of five million people throughout Northern and Central California, Nevada and Oregon, and cares for more than 3,000 new cancer patients each year. Through collaborations with community hospitals, the cancer center also operates outpatient cancer centers in Yuba City and Merced.

More information about this news:

• NCI overview
• Questions and answers about the NCI designation
• Biography of Ralph W. DeVere White, director of the UC Davis Cancer Center
• Streaming video
• Cancer Center facts

Media contacts

• Claudia Morain, UC Davis Cancer Center, (916) 734-9023, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
• Steve Wampler, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, (925) 423-3107