EASTERN COOPERATIVE ONCOLOGY GROUP

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Albert Einstein College of Medicine Cancer Center (AECC) is an NCI-designated Cancer Center that has been continuously funded since 1971. Our specific aims are to improve the treatment of cancer and our understanding of its biology by conducting innovative clinical trials with translational components when feasible that offer the potential for broad application. Patients are recruited from four affiliated hospitals that see approximately 4000 new cancer patients each year, with 25 full time faculty members and 20 hematology/oncology fellows supported by 18 research staff. During the last grant cycle, AECC members authored or co-authored 41 manuscripts and 25 abstracts related to ECOG studies, enrolled 332 patients on ECOG/CTSU trials, chaired or co-chaired 23 studies (including two trials [E1199, E2197] that accrued over 8000 patients), initiated or reported four new ECOG trials that were based partly or wholly on AECC pilot studies (E1199, E3198, E3493, E1494), and provided scientific leadership in the breast (J. Sparano), gastrointestinal (L. Augenlicht), leukemia (R. Gallagher), lymphoma (J. Sparano), and thoracic committees (S. Keller, R. Perez-Soler). AECC investigators also secured funding to support translational studies in leukemia, gynecological cancer, and gastrointestinal cancer associated with ECOG studies. Other active clinical research programs include an experimental therapeutics program that recruits approximately 100 patients per year on phase I studies, and participation in a phase II CTEP consortium, providing an environment that fosters drug development that may be taken to ECOG; examples of this include several ECOG studies that include BMS-247550 (E2103, E3800, E2301), which underwent phase I-II development at AECC. The AECC serves an ethnically and economically diverse population of 1.3 million people, with 70 percent of residents being minority and 31 percent living below the poverty level, as reflected by nearly 70 percent minority recruitment on ECOG/CTSU trials. The establishment of a clinical research program in an affiliated municipal hospital and a community oncology program will serve to further enhance minority accrual. The recruitment of an internationally recognized physician-scientist (R. Perez-Soler) as Chairman of Department of Medical Oncology and Associate Cancer Center Director in July 2001 has been accompanied by recruitment of 17 new faculty members that will serve to further strengthen the active core of investigators and enhance the group's contributions to ECOG.