Brain Cancer SPORE Grant

Awarded: December 2004
Amount: $10.8 million over five years
Principal Investigator: Brian O'Neill, M.D.
Co-Principal Investigator: Robert Jenkins, M.D., Ph.D.

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is one of only four cancer centers to receive a National Cancer Institute-sponsored Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant for brain cancer research. Primary brain tumors cause a significant impact on public health, with almost 12 out of 100,000 people expected to develop them each year. More than half of these tumors will be malignant, and that number seems to be increasing.

Primary brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer death for children and adolescents in the United States. The most common primary brain tumor in adults, glioblastoma, is typically lethal without treatment. Current treatments are not increasing cure rates and the quality of such survival is often poor. In addition they have a disproportionate effect on quality of life because of its disabling impact on cognition, language, mobility, and adaptive skills. The advanced age of the average patient, and neurotoxicity of standard therapy further amplify this morbidity.

The intent of the Mayo Clinic Brain SPORE is to implement a strong collaboration between basic scientists and clinicians, to foster meaningful studies of brain cancer. Research in the Mayo SPORE in brain cancer will interrogate pathogenetic mechanisms of glioma biology and, with this knowledge, develop interventions that result in improved duration and quality of life for our patients. This program brings together established investigators who represent relevant areas of neuroscience and tumor biology appropriate to successful translational interventions in patients with gliomas.

Mayo Clinic surgeons were some of the earliest contributors to the body of knowledge regarding brain tumors. Mayo also was one of the founding members of the National Institutes of Health -sponsored Brain Tumor Study Group, and over the years has developed a robust scientific enterprise with the underpinnings of strong clinical accomplishments. This scientific program parallels the explosion of molecular biology and modern neuroimaging, and has led to the development of a number of research programs including the Mayo Clinic Brain SPORE program.

The national Brain Tumor Progress Review Group laid out a number of priorities to which the Mayo Clinic Brain SPORE is directly focused, including facilitating development of novel and less toxic therapeutic agents and approaches, increasing understanding of mechanisms and improving outcomes of current agents and therapies, and developing clinical consortia for immunotherapy. Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has taken on these priorities, and the Brain SPORE seeks to move research forward through a number of projects .

• Projects
• Core Resources
• Developmental Programs