“On behalf of the Mesothelioma Program at the University of Chicago Medicine, I want to thank you for your generous partnership,” Johnston said in her letter to our sponsor Kazan Law. “Thanks to supporters like you, our investigators are advancing mesothelioma research and improving therapeutic and preventative strategies to treat the patients for whom we all care so deeply.”
Six new scientific mesothelioma clinical trials will be launched in the next six months by the University of Chicago’s School of Medicine’s Mesothelioma Program. The university mesothelioma program was able to secure funding from recently obtained grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) thanks in part to seed funding from Mesothelioma Circle’s sponsor the Kazan Law Foundation.
Obtaining funding from the federal government’s NCI is critical for a proposed mesothelioma clinical trial to move forward. The medical objectives and strategy for a possible new mesothelioma treatment need to be clear and much preliminary work needs to be done by the researchers before they can apply for federal grant money. By providing seed funding, money needed to “plant the seeds” that have the potential to grow into full-fledged clinical trials, funds from the Kazan Law Foundation help lay the groundwork for new mesothelioma treatment possibilities.
A recent funding opportunity announcement from NCI asked for applications from institutions and organizations across the US to apply to be one of the new Network Lead Academic Participating Sites for the NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). The goal of the NCTN is to develop and conduct state-of-the-art cancer treatment and advanced imaging clinical trials, especially large, definitive multi-institutional trials evaluating new cancer therapies and related clinical approaches. The University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center was able to earn the designation as a Lead Academic Participating Site in the National Clinical Trials Network with the help of Kazan Law Foundation funds.
In a recent letter to Kazan Law to announce the new designation, Callie Johnston, director of the medical school’s donation program, said, “Our clinical trials program received the top score, and was rated Exceptional with outstanding depth and breadth.”
“We are recruiting participants for many open mesothelioma clinical trials (more than our peer institutions), with six new trials opening in the next six months,” she added.
Here at Mesothelioma Circle, we will highlight for you in the coming weeks some of these new mesothelioma treatment research projects. You can also check the federal government’s National Institutes of Health clinical trials website ClinicalTrials.gov for new mesothelioma treatment clinical trials recruiting participants.