National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health, which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other activities related to the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer; the supportive care of cancer patients and their families; and cancer survivorship.
NCI is the oldest and has the largest budget and research program of the 27 institutes and centers of the NIH. It fulfills the majority of its mission via an extramural program that provides grants for cancer research. Additionally, the National Cancer Institute has intramural research programs in Bethesda, Maryland, and at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. The NCI receives more than in funding each year.
The NCI supports a nationwide network of 73 NCI-designated Cancer Centers with a dedicated focus on cancer research and treatment and maintains the National Clinical Trials Network.
History
Timeline
- August 5, 1937: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the National Cancer Institute Act, which established the National Cancer Institute, as a division of the Public Health Service.
- 1940: The first issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute was published.
- 1944: The United States Congress made the NCI an operating division of the National Institutes of Health by its passage of the Public Health Service Act. Congress later amended the Public Health Service Act with the National Cancer Act of 1971, to broaden the scope and responsibilities of the NCI "in order more effectively to carry out the national effort against cancer."
- 1955: NCI established the Clinical Trials Cooperative Group Program, which included several research networks that conducted cancer clinical research primarily under the sponsorship of NCI.
- 1957: The first cancer, choriocarcinoma, was cured with chemotherapy at NCI.
- 1960: NCI began funding government-supported cancer centers.
- 1971: President Richard Nixon converted the U.S. Army's former biological warfare facilities at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to house research activities on the causes, treatment, and prevention of cancer.
- 1971: The National Cancer Act of 1971 declares "war on cancer", establishes the National Cancer Advisory Board, and allots additional funding for cancer research.
- 1975: The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research opened in Frederick, Maryland, as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center
- 1993: The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 encourages NCI to expand its efforts in prostate cancer, breast and other cancers which primarily or solely affected women, and authorized increased appropriations.
- 1998: Establishes the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine to study pseudoscientific alternative medicine treatments for cancer
- 2009: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided in additional funding for the NIH; the NCI received from that amount.
- 2016: The 21st Century Cures Act increased funding for biomedical research. The "Cancer Moonshot" program promised additional support for cancer research.
- On October 17, 2017, Norman Sharpless was sworn in as the 15th director of the National Cancer Institute. In April 2019, Sharpless left NCI to serve as the acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs. He returned to the institute in November 2019 as director.
Anti-cancer drug investigations
Organization
The NCI is divided into several divisions and centers.Intramural
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Extramural
- Division of Cancer Biology
- Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences
- Division of Cancer Prevention
- Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis
- Division of Extramural Activities
Office of the director
- Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology
- Center for Cancer Genomics
- Center for Cancer Training
- Center for Global Health
- Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives
- Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities
- Center for Research Strategy
- Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials
- Technology Transfer Center
Programs
NCI-designated Cancer Centers
The NCI-designated Cancer Centers are one of the primary arms in the NCI's mission in supporting cancer research. There are currently 73 so-designated centers; 9 cancer centers, 57 comprehensive cancer centers, and 7 basic laboratory cancer centers. NCI supports these centers with grant funding in the form of P30 Cancer Center Support Grants to support shared research resources and interdisciplinary programs. Additionally, faculty at the cancer centers receive approximately 75% of the grant funding awarded by the NCI to individual investigators.The NCI cancer centers program was introduced in 1971 with 15 participating institutions.
National Clinical Trials Network
The National Clinical Trials Network was formed in 2014, from the Cooperative Group program to modernize the existing system to support precision medicine clinical trials. With precision medicine, many patients must be screened to determine eligibility for treatments in development.Lead Academic Participating Sites were chosen at 30 academic institutions for their ability to conduct clinical trials and screen a large number of participants and awarded grants to support the infrastructure and administration required for clinical trials. Most LAPS grant recipients are also NCI-designated cancer centers. NCTN also stores surgical tissue from patients in a nationwide network of tissue banks at various universities.
Developmental Therapeutics Program
The NCI Development Therapeutics Program provides services and resources to the academic and private-sector research communities worldwide to facilitate the discovery and development of new cancer therapeutic agents.Under the label "Discovery & Development Services" several services are offered, among them the [|NCI-60 human cancer cell line screen] and the Molecular Target Program.
In the Molecular Target Program thousands of molecular targets have been measured in the NCI panel of 60 human tumor cell lines. Measurements include protein levels, RNA measurements, mutation status and enzyme activity levels.
NCI-60 Human Tumor Cell Lines Screen
The evolution of strategies at the NCI illustrates the changes in screening that have resulted from advances in cancer biology. The Developmental Therapeutics Program operates a tiered anti-cancer compound screening program with the goal of identifying novel chemical leads and biological mechanisms. The DTP screen is a three phase screen which includes: an initial screen which first involves a single dose cytotoxicity screen with the 60 cell line assay. Those passing certain thresholds are subjected to a 5 dose screen of the same 60 cell-line panel to determine a more detailed picture of the biological activity. A second phase screen establishes the maximum tolerable dosage and involves in vivo examination of tumor regression using the hollow fiber assay. The third phase of the study is the human tumor xenograft evaluation.Active compounds are selected for testing based on several criteria: disease type specificity in the in vitro assay, unique structure, potency, and demonstration of a unique pattern of cellular cytotoxicity or cytostasis, indicating a unique mechanism of action or intracellular target.
A high correlation of cytotoxicity with compounds of known biological mechanism is often predictive of the drugs mechanism of action and thus a tool to aid in the drug development and testing. It also tells if there is any unique response of the drug which is not similar to any of the standard prototype compounds in the NCI database.
Leadership
List of NCI directors since 1937:| Portrait | Director | Term start | Term end | ||
| 1 | Carl Voegtlin | January 13, 1938 | July 31, 1943 | ||
| 2 | Roscoe Roy Spencer | August 1, 1943 | July 1, 1947 | - | |
| 3 | Leonard Andrew Scheele | July 1, 1947 | April 6, 1948 | ||
| 4 | John Roderick Heller | May 15, 1948 | July 1, 1960 | ||
| 5 | Kenneth Milo Endicott | July 1, 1960 | November 10, 1969 | ||
| acting | Carl Gwin Baker | November 11, 1969 | July 12, 1970 | ||
| 6 | Carl Gwin Baker | July 13, 1970 | May 5, 1972 | ||
| 7 | Frank Joseph Rauscher, Jr. | May 5, 1972 | November 1, 1976 | ||
| 8 | Arthur Canfield Upton | July 29, 1977 | December 31, 1980 | ||
| acting | Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. | January 1, 1980 | July 8, 1980 | ||
| 9 | Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. | July 9, 1980 | September 1, 1988 | ||
| 10 | Samuel Broder | December 22, 1988 | April 1, 1995 | ||
| 11 | Richard D. Klausner | August 1, 1995 | September 30, 2001 | ||
| acting | Alan S. Rabson | October 1, 2001 | January 21, 2002 | ||
| 12 | Andrew C. von Eschenbach | January 22, 2002 | June 10, 2006 | ||
| acting | John E. Niederhuber | June 11, 2006 | September 14, 2006 | ||
| 13 | John E. Niederhuber | September 15, 2006 | July 12, 2010 | ||
| 14 | Harold Varmus | July 12, 2010 | March 31, 2015 | ||
| acting | Douglas R. Lowy | April 1, 2015 | October 16, 2017 | ||
| 15 | Norman E. Sharpless | October 17, 2017 | April 29, 2022 | ||
| acting | Douglas R. Lowy | April 30, 2022 | October 16, 2022 | ||
| 16 | Monica Bertagnolli | October 17, 2022 | November 9, 2023 | ||
| acting | Douglas R. Lowy | November 10, 2023 | December 17, 2023 | ||
| 17 | Kimryn Rathmell | December 18, 2023 | January 20, 2025 | ||
| acting | Douglas R. Lowy | January 21, 2025 | September 28, 2025 | ||
| 18 | Anthony Letai | September 29, 2025 | present |
Table notes: