Page 13 - Delaware Medical Journal - March/April 2021

COVER STORY
BACKGROUND
Delaware is the second-smallest state in the nation, but when the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center opened in 2002, it ranked highest in the nation for cancer incidence and mortality rates. Delaware now ranks 16th in the nation for cancer mortality,1 in large measure due to the groundbreaking research — including clinical trials; program development and expansion such as cancer community outreach; genetic counseling and gene testing; psychosocial programs; oncology rehabilitation; and multidisciplinary patient care — at the HFGCCRI. Just as importantly, all cancer centers in the state, working together with the Delaware Cancer Consortium and Delaware Cancer Advisory Council, have contributed to this dramatic decrease in cancer mortality. It indeed has taken a village to accomplish this.2
Under the direction of Greg Masters,
MD and Kandie Dempsey, DBA, MS, RN, OCN, the HFGCCRI has become a national leader in clinical trials for cancer research, with 29% of patients enrolled in one or more clinical research trials for the prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer, compared to the national average of 4%.3
ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center and The Wistar Cancer Institute
in Philadelphia, an international leader
in biomedical research, collaborate
in a unique partnership to bring the
latest discoveries in cancer research to cancer patients in our community. The partnership combines Wistar’s strengths
in biomedical research with the Graham Cancer Center’s exceptional cancer treatment, patient care, and research strength. The two institutions are working toward becoming a National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Center, which United States involving an NCI-Designated
ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center and The Wistar Cancer Institute in Philadelphia, an international leader in biomedical research, collaborate in a unique partnership to bring the latest discoveries in cancer research to cancer patients in our community.
Research Center and an Academic Hybrid Community Cancer Center. However, despite these gains, cancer continues to be the second leading cause of death, after heart disease, in Delaware.
THE CAWLEY CENTER
FOR TRANSLATIONAL CANCER RESEARCH (CTCR)
Established in 2009, the Cawley Center for Translational Cancer Research (CTCR) is a powerful link that allows physicians and scientists to work side- by-side as a team of experts, identifying needs of individual patients at the bedside, bringing those problems to the lab to explore solutions, and then returning to the bedside where those new solutions can be used to help the patient.
The 7,000-square-foot laboratory space in the CTCR houses the most sophisticated equipment necessary to investigate the biochemical and molecular etiology of cancer. Because of its position within ChristianaCare — one of the largest community-based health systems in the United States — and its high clinical- trials accrual rate, the Graham Cancer Center has the ability to collect and preserve clinically annotated primary patient specimens of the highest quality under Institutional Review Board approval, including patient consents
from a widely diverse patient population, providing a boon to bench-to-bedside research. A tissue banking resource is
a lifeline to scientists seeking viable research specimens from subgroups of
of opportunities to test new therapies.
The Tissue Procurement Center (TPC) contains more than 6,000 samples of cancers of the lung, breast, colorectal area, head and neck, ovary, brain, and others that can be used for clinical research.
The TPC resulted in the HFGCCRI being funded as a biospecimen collection center for the National Institutes of Health Cancer Genome Atlas project.
ACCELERATING THE PACE OF DISCOVERY
Cancer research is a journey into the unknown. It begins with an idea, usually born in discussions between the scientist and the clinician in the CTCR laboratory. Seed project funding is made available by the CTCR operations budget. Once the idea has incubated, it needs an infusion of dollars to move toward further research in the lab and then to clinical trials in patients. This can be funded in several ways: through government or through the National Cancer Institute (NCI) or National Institutes of Health (NIH), is very competitive and requires a lengthy
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