Dateline DFCI
Collaboration is the core of new cancer center structure
The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) moved closer to reality this winter with the Center's official grant application under review by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and a February site visit.
The center is already reshaping the landscape of cancer research in the Harvard University medical community. For 35 years, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) has been a federally designated cancer center — one of 37 current comprehensive cancer centers around the country, but the only one within the Harvard system. DF/HCC places Dana-Farber at the hub of an interactive cancer research system that includes seven major Harvard-affiliated institutions.
David Livingston, M.D., (left), chair of Dana-Farber's Executive Committee for Research, speaks at a September 1999 Institute Forum outlining DF/HCC plans as Lowell Schnipper, M.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, listens.
After a report by the 26-member NCI site visit team, the Institute expects to receive formal notification of whether the application has been approved, and at what level, in June. The grant would take effect July 1, 2000, and initially support 800 researchers working in 15 programs.
DF/HCC represents the next step in an evolution that began when the Children's Cancer Research Foundation — Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's original name — joined Children's Hospital (CH) in the treatment and study of children's cancers, according to Institute President David G. Nathan, M.D. The process gained momentum three years ago with the creation of Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare (DF/PCC), the joint service in adult oncology involving Dana-Farber, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH).
"One of the main reasons for creating DF/PCC was to to enlarge the pool of patients participating in clinical trials so we could get answers and find better treatments more quickly," Nathan says.
That led to the idea of a Harvard-wide system not only in clinical cancer research, but also in basic research and population sciences. Members of the collaborative are Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, BWH, DFCI, Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and MGH.
