Cancer Epigenetics Program (03)

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT – CANCER EPIGENETICS PROGRAM The Cancer Epigenetics (CE) Program, led by Issa and Studitsky is a new Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC). The CE Program is designed to integrate basic and applied research in the field of epigenetics. It is comprised of 19 Primary Members. Program funding is $5M (project direct costs) annually, including $2.4M in peer-reviewed funding of which $1M is from the NCI. CE members have been highly productive since Program initiation in 2012, generating 232 publications, with 9% representing intra- programmatic and 27% representing inter-programmatic collaborations. The CE Program takes advantage of the breadth and depth of faculty expertise in cancer epigenetics arising from the 2012 affiliation between FCCC and Temple University, to advance the overall goal of improving cancer outcomes through new approaches in detection, prognosis and therapy. The CE Program has four overarching themes: 1) Epigenomics: To decipher normal and cancer epigenomes, with the translational goal of discovering biomarkers of cancer risk, prognosis and response to therapy; 2) Readers, Writers and Erasers: To study the proteins that establish, read, modulate and perpetuate epigenetic marks, with the translational goal of discovering potential targets of therapy; 3) Development and Disease: To study epigenetics in normal and abnormal development and relate this information to what is known about cancer epigenetics and biology. The translational goal of this theme is in understanding cancer etiology, and discovering ways to reprogram the epigenome for therapeutic purposes; 4) Epigenetic Therapy: To develop epigenetically-targeted therapeutic approaches and test them in pre-clinical and clinical studies. These themes are developed by investigators working in multidisciplinary teams to identify and address the complex factors that contribute to cancer risk, cancer development and cancer treatment. This new Program was made possible by the recruitment of multiple faculty members at all career stages (junior and senior) and with diverse interests (basic to clinical), and has resulted in a strongly integrated program with both R01 funded basic research and rapidly accruing investigator-initiated clinical trials. These collaborative efforts have created a productive research environment that fosters the identification of new biomarkers of cancer risk, novel molecular targets for preventive intervention, and the successful development and implementation of novel approaches to cancer therapy. CE Program members have successfully accrued 394 research participants into interventional and non-interventional studies during the last funding cycle, and have benefited from the use of 11 of the 12 CCSG-supported Shared Resources at FCCC.