Director's Statement



The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to find cures for children with catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. The major focus of these efforts has been the large set of life-threatening diseases known as cancer. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) supports 63 Cancer Centers around the country with formal Cancer Center Support Grants (CCSG), and St. Jude has received one of these prestigious national grants consistently since 1977. St. Jude is the only institution among the 63 to focus specifically on childhood cancers and as such is the only pediatric institution in the country to be an NCI-designated Cancer Center.

Cancer Center faculty members are engaged in a broad spectrum of research, including discovery-oriented basic science research, investigation of disease pathogenesis and drug resistance, biobehavioral and quality-of-life research, and therapeutic trials. The Center is structured to emphasize interdisciplinary research programs with applicability to the understanding, prevention, and treatment of childhood cancer. Most of the more than 400 children who are accepted for cancer treatment each year are treated on disease-specific frontline protocols developed by Cancer Center investigators. The hospital also accepts children who have already been treated elsewhere and are eligible for transplantation, relapse, or Phase I or II protocols. The outstanding financial support provided by our independent fundraising arm, ALSAC, allows Cancer Center investigators to pursue innovative, concept-driven treatment and research programs.

The Cancer Center currently contains six major Programs and 12 CCSG-supported Shared Resources. The Molecular Oncology and Signal Transduction Programs focus on basic, discovery-oriented research. The Developmental Therapeutics for Solid Malignancies, Hematological Malignancies, Neurobiology & Brain Tumor, and Cancer Prevention & Control Programs all emphasize the translation of laboratory or population science to clinical application. The Cancer Prevention & Control Program, which was started in 2006, represents the culmination of a long-standing commitment to long-term follow-up of our patient population, a recent commitment to population sciences, and successful recruitment of a world-class scientist, Dr. Leslie L. Robison, to lead efforts in this area.

Research by the 140 members of the Cancer Center is supported by the 12 Shared Resources and an outstanding clinical research infrastructure. St. Jude Cancer Center investigators produce hundreds of peer-reviewed publications per year, with a significant percentage representing collaborations between scientists within or across programs. Extramural support for cancer research at St. Jude is currently more than $50 million per year.

The renewal of the CCSG, which is an extremely competitive process, occurs every 5 years. The St. Jude CCSG renewal application was submitted and reviewed in 2007 and was judged to be “Outstanding,” the highest possible rating. With the addition of the Cancer Prevention & Control Program, St. Jude met the scientific criteria for consideration as a Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the application for “comprehensive” status was submitted and reviewed in 2008. This latter application described the cancer-related educational, outreach, and community service efforts of the institution and was reviewed very favorably by an expert NCI committee. In April, 2008, St. Jude received the highest NCI designation by being named an “NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center”. The outstanding evaluation of the St. Jude Cancer Center reflects both the extraordinary quality of the scientific efforts (laboratory and clinical) and the exceptional infrastructure that supports cancer investigation at the institution. Opportunities remain bright for the future since the recent expansion of the Immunology faculty and the addition of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics faculty members will further broaden the scope of cancer research at St. Jude.


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