University of Colorado Cancer Center Celebrates 20 Years

Newswise — Twenty years after opening its doors as the Rocky Mountain region's only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, the University of Colorado Cancer Center has become one of the nation's premier institutions for cancer research, education, patient care and outreach.

"That first year, we had just a few members and a couple of employees," said Paul A. Bunn Jr., MD, UCCC director, professor of Medical Oncology and James Dudley Chair for Cancer Research at the University of Colorado Denver. "I think we enrolled 10 patients in clinical trials. Now, we have 405 members—people who are doing cancer research that is being published in places like Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine. Last year, our members received nearly $110 million in research funding. They also provided care for thousands of patients and enrolled about 7,000 people in clinical cancer research trials. These facts speak to our success over the past 20 years."

Originally established in 1988 as a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center under the auspices of the UC Denver School of Medicine, UCCC was designed to be an inclusive cancer research center, partnering with cancer scientists, physicians and researchers all across the state and region.

In 1997, UCCC won its elite NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center designation by adding a cancer prevention and control research and outreach program—one of just 39 such centers in the nation.

Today, UCCC's members hail from the UC Denver's Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Dental Medicine and College of Nursing, American Cancer Society-Colorado Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Colorado State University, National Jewish Medical and Research Center, and University of Colorado at Boulder. UCCC clinical members provide cancer care at University of Colorado Hospital, The Children's Hospital, Denver Health Medical Center, Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Colorado State's Animal Cancer Center and several community hospitals across the state.

At the University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo., UCCC's multidisciplinary approach to care is unique in the region and offers patients access to a range of patient care in one location, usually in one day.

"Other centers may ask patients to go to one clinic to see a medical oncologist, to another for a surgery consult and yet another to talk with a social worker," said Bunn, who is also a world-renowned lung cancer physician and researcher. "It is our mission to bring people here the most advanced treatment options available in the world with just a drive across town and a few hours of treatment."

Today, most people who are diagnosed with cancer don't die. Regular screening tests are catching cancer at the earliest states when it can be treated easily with less toxic treatments than what was available 20 years ago. Cancer death rates for lung, colon, prostate and breast cancer have declined by approximately one percent per year since 1992 and 80 percent of children with cancer now survive thanks to shared data and multi- center trials.

• The Rocky Mountain region's only Phase I Clinical Trials program was established at UCCC in 1999. Phase I trials are the first to bring to new treatment options from the research bench to the patient's bedside. Typically, these studies involve new drugs or a novel combination of drugs.
• UCCC is the only place in the region where patients can get access to Phase I clinical trial treatments as well as multidisciplinary care. The program has enrolled more than 700 patients in clinical trials at University of Colorado Hospital and The Children's Hospital.
• UCCC has the region's best 5-year outcome data for patients in clinical trials. Designated "super survivors," a large percentage of patients at UCCC are alive for five years or more following participation in Phase 1 Clinical Trials.

Over the last 20 years, cancer research and treatment has come a long way. The genomic and proteomic revolution has given cancer physicians and researchers the knowledge that cancer starts as a mutation of a cell's DNA. This has also led to the discovery of how genes affect cancer and which genetic markers predetermine who can be susceptible to the disease and are playing a role in a specific tumor.

"The decoding of the genome and the uncovering of genes related to cancer is leading to personalized cancer treatment " it's just beginning really " and UCCC scientists and clinicians are at the leading edge of this research and its clinical applications," Bunn said.

Among UCCC's research accomplishments over the past 20 years:

• Nobel Prize: In 1989, UCCC member Tom Cech, PhD, received the Novel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery that RNA in living cells can act as a biocatalyst. This discovery, which came as a complete surprise to scientists, altered the central dogma of the biosciences and had a profound influence on our understanding of how life on earth began and developed.
• Drug Development: UCCC members founded biotech firms GlobeImmune and ApopLogic, among others, to develop cancer drugs. Brian Kavanagh, MD, and Tracy Schefter, MD, were the developers of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy, a non-invasive way to target tumors inside of organs that is being used worldwide.
• Cancer Survivorship: As one of just seven LIVESTRONGTM Centers for Cancer Survivorship, UCCC is home to one of the nation's richest programs for cancer survivors.
• Cancer Prevention & Control: UCCC researchers, including Tim Byers, MD, MPH, are national leaders in how diet and exercise are involved in cancer risk. The center is one of 30 U.S. sites for the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial, which is comparing two ways of detecting lung cancer: spiral CT and standard chest X-ray; and one of 10 U.S. centers conducting the nation's largest cancer screening trial " the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) screening trial which enrolled 154,000 people nationwide. UCCC is also home to the Colorado Colorectal Screening Program—which has screened more than 4,150 people for colorectal cancer, removed polyps from 1,000, diagnosed 30 cases of cancer and prevented 150 in its first year.
• Cancer Cell Biology: UCCC investigators discovered Tarmogen technology, a potent, yeast-based activators of T cells that recognize and eliminate cancer cells. Robert Sclafani, PhD, and Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, Also discovered how two natural products—silibinin from milk thistle and Resveratrol from red wine— actually work.
• Immunology & Immunotherapy: UCCC members Carol Kruse, PhD and Kevin Lillehei, MD, and Donald Bellgrau, PhD, developed a technique to help the human immune system battle brain tumors that is now used worldwide in immunotherapy for many cancer types. Ross Kedl, PhD, developed a way to enhance immune responses to tumors using Toll-like receptor antagonists, an approach that is being developed by ImmuRx for treatment of human cancers.
• Hormone Related Malignancies: Kathryn Horwitz, PhD, was the first person to show that estrogen, a female hormone, plays a key role in metastasis and colloaboratedcollaborated with Carol Sartoriusm, PhD, to develop a mouse model for hormone receptor positive breast cancers. Heide Ford, PhD showed that the Six1 gene is amplified in human breast cancer and plays a role in metastasis.
• Thoracic Oncology: UCCC scientists have developed and validated a test can help identify which non-small-cell lung cancer patients will respond to certain drugs.

The University of Colorado Cancer Center is the Rocky Mountain region's National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. Headquartered primarily at the University of Colorado Denver, its four-part mission is excellence in cancer research, treatment, prevention and education. For more information, visit the UCCC Web site or the UC Denver Newsroom.