1/3 Florida-California Cancer Research, Education and Engagement (CaRE2) Health Center

Florida Agricultural And Mechanical Univ, Tallahassee FL

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The Florida-California Cancer Research, Education & Engagement (CaRE2) Health Center is proposed by the Florida A&M University (FAMU, University of Florida (UF), and the University of Southern California-Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center (USC-NCCC) to reduce the cancer burden in Florida, California and nationally. The long-term goals of the CaRE2 Center are to reduce the cancer burden through scientific discoveries and community outreach, train and increase the pool of cancer researchers, increase research capacity at FAMU, and increase cancer research at UF and USC-NCCC. This CaRE2 triad is a bi-coastal partnership that brings together investigators and institutions in the two U.S. states that currently have the highest cancer incidence and mortality. The main scientific focus of the Center is to identify, examine, and understand cancer morbidity and mortality among the people living in Florida and California, particularly individuals who are susceptible to reduced survival following diagnosis and treatment. We propose to coalesce expertise, infrastructure and shared resources in support of 6 innovative translational research projects focused on understanding the biological basis of cancer differences among populations in our catchment areas, capturing the wide heterogeneity within these populations, with two foundational projects focusing on pancreas cancer (one full, one pilot) and one full project focusing on lung cancer (Aim 1). Under the leadership of the Research Education Core, we propose to train a total of 160 investigators, including 120 students and early-stage investigators (ESI) and 40 continuing trainees, in research on cancer morbidity and mortality (Aim 2). Leverage existing community partnerships, the Community Outreach Core will disseminate findings in all communities and provide educate about pancreas and lung cancers to enhance risk reduction and prevention and improve participation in biomedical research (Aim 3). Finally, the Planning and Evaluation Core will implement a systematic planning and evaluation plan to improve Center effectiveness using innovative strategies (Aim 4). All research projects will be facilitated and enriched by resources and approaches provided by the Tissue Modeling & Drug Development Core and Bioinformatics, Statistical and Methodological Core. All CaRE2 Center’s activities will be centralized and overseen by the Administrative Core. The FAMU-UF-USC partnership is ideally suited to achieve these aims. FAMU, UF, and USC have worked closely together addressing cancer morbidity and mortality in Florida and California communities for the last 4.5 years, providing complementary and synergistic expertise in cancer research for research training of all populations and development of sensitive tools to reduce the cancer burden among these populations.