The University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC)’s Comprehensive Cancer Center received a $3.9-million award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to be distributed over the next five years. The grant is a part of the NCI’s new National Clinical Trials Program and was awarded after the UCMC was chosen as a Lead Academic Participating Site (LAPS) in the National Clinical Trials Program.
The National Clinical Trials Program comes as a replacement to the National Cancer Institute’s 55-year-old program, the National Cooperative Groups Program, and is meant to better “integrate and streamline the process of cancer clinical trials research,” according to the National Cancer Institute.
The Comprehensive Cancer Center was chosen as one of 30 Lead Academic Participating Sites after it received the highest possible score in the application process. LAPS sites deal with the most complicated cancer cases and lead the more than 3,000 trial sites for the National Clinical Trials Program. The Cancer Center is the only LAPS site in Illinois.
According to the National Cancer Institute, as a LAPS the Comprehensive Cancer Center will “[provide] scientific leadership in development and [conducting] clinical trials in association with the adult clinical trial groups.”