Translating Research into Practice

Changing the Future of Cancer Research and Care

When former Director Chi V. Dang, MD, PhD, joined Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, one of his key priorities was to create flagship medical programs that would bring together experts from diverse fields to address major challenges in cancer care.

He invited faculty from the Penn community to form teams and develop multidisciplinary, disease-specific Translational Centers of Excellence (TCEs) aimed at finding solutions to the most pressing issues confronting cancer patients.

In his position as the new Abramson Cancer Center Director, Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, will usher this program through the next phase as the more TCEs are selected, and the existing TCEs mature into research centers.

Following an extensive application and scientific review process, the following TCEs were selected for funding:

• 2-PREVENT Breast Cancer Translational Center of Excellence: Led by Lewis Chodosh, MD, PhD and Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, this TCE aims to address one of the greatest challenges in breast cancer treatment: the high rate of relapse and late treatment effects among breast cancer survivors. Read the ACC Breast TCE application.
• Glioblastoma Translational Center of Excellence: Led by Donald O'Rourke, MD, this TCE aims to investigate cellular therapies and provide more effective treatment options to patients with GBM.
• Hematologic Malignancies Translational Center of Excellence: Martin Carroll, MD and Edward Stadtmauer, MD are leading efforts at this TCE to redefine the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to blood cancers—including leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma—and provide more effective targeted therapies. Read the ACC Heme Malig TCE application.
• Thoracic Cancer Translational Center of Excellence: Led by Steve Albelda, MD and Corey Langer, MD, this TCE builds upon Penn’s strong clinical strengths to rapidly move basic and translational discoveries—particularly novel and effective immunotherapies— to the clinic. Read the ACC Thoracic TCE application.
• Ovarian Cancer Translational Center of Excellence: Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD, and Fiona Simpkins, MD, are leading this TCE to eliminate the separation that sometimes occurs between laboratory research and patient care. Their work is making it easier than ever before to rapidly translate new laboratory findings into clinical practice, allowing us to provide patients with new therapeutic options.

Fueling Innovation and Propelling Discovery

Translational Centers of Excellence are narrowing the gap between the clinic and the laboratory, accelerating the pace of discoveries that will help today’s patients become—and remain—cancer-free. They bring together the most brilliant minds from across the Penn system, from basic scientists to engineers, inspiring one another to work together to solve cancer’s most complex challenges — and create possibilities that have never been dreamed.