Women's Oncology

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The goal of the Women's Oncology Program (WON) is: (1) to accelerate the pace and expand the range of fundamental discovery research about women's cancers and (2) to facilitate the translation of new scienfific findings into the clinic. WON Members study novel pathways by which hormones and growth factors regulate growth and metastasis of women's cancers; identify potential new therapeufic targets or prognostic indicators for response or resistance to therapy; and perform clinical trials to test efficacy of therapeutic agents in treating these cancers. Program leadership has organized WON around three research themes: (1) steroid hormone action and steroid-dependent cancers; (2) growth factor and cytokine promotion of tumor development and metastasis; and (3) invesfigator-initiated clinical research and development of novel clinical research tools. Professor of Medicine and Physiology Margaret A. Shupnik, PhD, and Professor of Medicine Paula M. Fracasso, MD, PhD, lead the Program. Dr. Shupnik has expertise in molecular endocrinology and estrogen receptor action, and Dr. Fracasso is an experienced clinical trialist in women's oncology. The Program represents a wide variety of expertise: 22 Members from nine departments in the schools of Medicine and of Engineering, and six Associate Members. With critical CCSG help, seven WON Members have joined the University of Virginia (UVA) since the last renewal, and two Members have been retained. The following areas of support have enabled the success of WON research initiatives, which have become increasingly cancer focused and interactive: funding for faculty recruitment and retention; funding for informafion exchange forums, such as the CC Seminar Series, WON research meetings, and the Program Retreat; Cancer Center Pilot Project Funds; and support from the UVA Cancer Center Shared Resources. Total extramural funding for the Program exceeds $10.5 million, including nearly $5 million from the Nafional Cancer Institute (NCI). Over the past five years, WON Members have published 317 Program-relevant papers of which 29% were inter-Programmatic and 21% were intra-Programmatic.