Cancer Center Support Grant

The Markey Cancer Center (MCC), a dedicated matrix cancer center established as an integral part of the University of Kentucky (UK) and the UK HealthCare enterprise, seeks National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation via the P30 Cancer Center Support Grant mechanism to support its mission to reduce the cancer burden in Kentucky and beyond. Unique strengths of the MCC include a unified campus with a medical center and all professional buildings on a single campus, which promotes close interactions, sharing of resources, and multidisciplinary collaborations; an outstanding Cancer Prevention and Control Program which has performed seminal work in Appalachian eastern Kentucky, leading to increased cancer screening and awareness; nationally-acclaimed basic research programs in DNA repair and oxidative stress and cancer biology; and, in collaboration with a top-five College of Pharmacy, an excellent translational therapeutics program. In the last three years, under Dr. B. Mark Evers's leadership, the MCC has undergone dramatic growth and expansion. Currently, the MCC has 108 Research and Associate Research members who have appointments in 24 departments in 7 colleges across the university (25 new faculty have been recruited in the last three years). MCC members hold grants for 140 research projects funded in the composite (direct and indirect) amount of more than $30 million, of which over $11 million (37%) comes from the NCI. Accrual to therapeutic clinical trials has increased over 130% in three years and MCC assignable space has increased 40% with, importantly, a doubling of state-of-the-art basic research space. The MCC is organized into four thematic Research Programs: Cancer Cell Biology and Signaling; Cancer Prevention and Control; Drug Discovery, Delivery and Translational Therapeutics; and Redox Injury and Repair. In addition, six established research Shared Resources are presented in this application for funding: Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting, Free Radical Biology in Cancer, Biospecimen and Tissue Procurement, Biostatistics, Cancer Research Informatics, and Clinical Research and Data Management. Our plans for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, our region and the nation are bold and far-reaching and will have a major impact on the lives that the MCC serves.