Grassroots
Patient Advocates Help UCSF Win Multi Million NCI SPORE Grant
by
Howard Waage
October 2, 2000 /PSA Rising/. University of California San Francisco has won a muliti-million dollar grant for prostate cancer research. The money will come from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the form of a SPORE (Specialized Program of Research
Excellence) grant.
"It is now official," Art Kern, a spokesperson for the Bay Area Prostate Cancer Advocacy Core Group, said yesterday. "UCSF has become the fourth prostate cancer SPORE in
the country." Others are at Baylor, Johns Hopkins and University of Michigan.
The research money will be given at the rate of about one and a half million dollars a year for five years. It
can be renewed at the next cycle. There is money for infrastructure on top of
the $1.5 million.
The UCSF Prostate Cancer Advocacy Core Group submitted a bid for this grant to the National Cancer Insititute (NCI) earlier this year. NCI already dedicates SPORE grants for several specific cancers,
Kern says. Breast cancer has SPORE status at UCSF and at five other US centers. Prostate cancer, until now, had only three other SPORE grant sites.
SPORE money is aimed at promoting interdisciplinary
research that will spark advances in prevention, diagnosis and
treatment of cancer. Unlike traditional National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, a SPORE grant provides funding for scientists and clinical investigators to work together to bring
research advances to patients.
To win a SPORE, an institution must demonstrate a
high degree of collaboration between first-rate scientists and
first-rate clinicians, along with a queue of promising, first-rate
translational research projects.
"UCSF is long and strong on all of this," Kern said. And, he says, "the presence of an active patient
advocates group working with the university is viewed as a plus by
the NCI in considering SPORE applications."
Marc Shuman led the team that won the
SPORE, and Peter R. Carroll M.D., Eric Small M.D., Mack Roach III M.D., and
Frank McCormick Ph.D. helped bring it
about. The funding begins immediately (as of September 25).
E-mail [email protected]
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