Cancer Therapy & Research Center at Uthscsa

The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) seeks renewal of its NCI designation originally awarded in 1991. The only academic Cancer Center in South Texas, the CTRC serves a large and predominantly Hispanic catchment area. The mission of the CTRC is to reduce the cancer burden in South Texas through the highest quality cancer care, ground-breaking research aimed at reducing the incidence and mortality of cancer, education of future cancer scientists and clinicians, and cancer prevention programs focused on our unique population. Dr. Ian M. Thompson, Jr., Director of the CTRC and the CTRC Senior Leaders have organized an interdisciplinary group of 78 cancer researchers (both basic and clinical) from two schools and 11 Departments within the UTHSCSA into three Programs: Cancer Development and Progression (CDP), Experimental and Developmental Therapeutics (EDT) and Cancer Prevention and Population Science (CPPS). These Programs are supported by 7 Shared Resources: Genomics, Next Generation Sequencing, Macromolecular Structure and Interactions, Mass Spectrometry, Flow Cytometry, Optical Imaging and Biostatistics. The CTRC also requests support for its Clinical Trials Office (CTO). Since 2008, improvements in the CTO have led to an increase in accruals, but importantly, an increase in interventional trials from 394 accruals in 2008 to 796 accruals in 2012. The CTRC has also made efforts to serve its catchment area illustrated by the fact that 46% of patients enrolled in interventional therapeutic clinical trials are Hispanic. Today, the UTHSCSA has $30,681,682M in annual total extramural research funding; a 74% increase from 2008. Of that $8,948,865M is from the NCI. Since 2008, 31 cancer-related clinical and research faculty have been recruited to the CTRC. All but one of the CTRC Senior Leaders are new since 2008. In 2011, UTHSCSA added 25,000 sq.ft. of CTRC-designated space in the new South Texas Research Facility, increasing CTRC-designated space to 285,193 sq.ft. The CTRC also invested in administrative infrastructure to support the CCSG and the research enterprise at the CTRC, in pilot funds for transdisciplinary research, and infrastructure to support clinical trials. The growth of the CTRC over the past 5 years is evidence of the commitment of the Center and its members to cancer research. Our members continue to make significant contributions to the cancer research field and develop novel approaches to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, all with a continual focus on the predominantly Hispanic catchment area we serve. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The Cancer Therapy & Research Center coordinates scientific research to promote interdisciplinary collaborations and translation of cancer research from the "bench to bedside to community" and provides outstanding shared research resources in support of its scientists, with the goal of reducing the cancer burden in South Texas.