March 25, 2014:

Sarah Thayer, M.D., Ph.D., an internationally recognized physician-scientist from Harvard Medical School, will be joining the University of Nebraska Medical Center to lead cancer surgery efforts and have a significant leadership role in the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.

Thayer will start May 1 as associate director for clinical affairs and physician-in-chief for the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. She also has been appointed Merle M. Musselman Centennial Professor of Surgery and chief of surgical oncology at UNMC.

“This is a prominent example that the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center will attract the brightest minds in cancer care and research who will look to take advantage of our world-class infrastructure and collaborate with what is already an outstanding team,” said UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.

“It speaks to our commitment to excellence that we would recruit someone of Dr. Thayer’s caliber,” said Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center Director Ken Cowan, M.D., Ph.D. “It also speaks to our rising profile that she would choose to be a part of what is happening here in Nebraska.” Read More

March 21, 2014:

Rutgers University President Dr. Robert Barchi recently cited the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium as an example of the academic collaboration that is possible between the Big Ten member institutions.

“This consortium of world-class academic institutions will enable a collaborative approach to improving our understanding of cancer in the lab and our treatment of cancer in our hospitals,” Barchi said in a letter to the Rutgers community.

Read Dr. Barchi’s letter.

The Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey is one of 12 member institutions in the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium.

About the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium: The Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium creates a unique team-research culture to drive science rapidly from ideas to treatment-changing paradigms. Within this innovative environment, today’s research leaders collaborate with and mentor the research leaders of tomorrow with the unified goal of improving the lives of all patients with cancer.

About the Big Ten Conference: The Big Ten Conference is an association of world-class universities whose member institutions share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching and public service. Founded in 1896, the Big Ten has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics in student-athletes’ lives and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness and competitiveness. The broad-based athletic programs of the 12 Big Ten institutions provide in excess of $141 million in direct financial aid to more than 8,200 student-athletes playing on more than 300 teams in 43 different sports. The Big Ten sponsors 26 official conference sports, 13 for men and 13 for women, and will add men’s and women’s lacrosse as the 27th and 28th official sports for the 2014-15 academic year. For more information, visit www.bigten.org.

Jan. 8, 2014:

The Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC) is actively seeking concepts for highly translational oncology trials that leverage the scientific and clinical expertise of Big Ten universities. The consortium is setting the goal to receive at least one new concept from each institution during 2014.

Click here to download the Request for Application (Microsoft Word format).

Once submitted, concepts will be discussed through a clinical trial working group mechanism. These disease-specific working groups are another way to increase collaboration across the Big Ten CRC institutions and provide an opportunity for senior investigators to mentor junior investigators throughout the development of these translational trials. Read More

Dec. 23, 2013:

University of Nebraska Medical Center‘s Julie Vose, M.D., has been elected president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) for a one-year term beginning in June 2015.

Vose will take office as president-elect during the ASCO annual meeting in Chicago in June 2014.

“ASCO is a very diverse and multifaceted organization with so much to offer its membership,” Vose said. “I am excited to serve the ASCO membership as president and to make a difference for oncology professionals and our patients.”

Vose cited the recent enhancements in the society’s educational offerings, quality improvement, and broadened advocacy as areas where her experience and training can add to the current ASCO activities, including CancerLinQ(TM), ASCO’s groundbreaking health information technology initiative to achieve higher quality, higher value cancer care with better outcomes for patients. Read More

Dec. 12, 2013:

Representatives of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC) institutions met recently in Chicago to discuss development of a collaborative IRB review process for Big Ten CRC studies.

Participants focused on the benefits and challenges of a reciprocal deferral agreement, which would expedite the approval process for multi-site trials and avoid duplicate reviews at each site. Carol Pech, Ph.D., associate director of the Health Sciences Institutional Review Boards Office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presented a model of a working IRB collaboration, the Wisconsin IRB Consortium. Read More

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

In athletics, the Big Ten universities compete against each other but now many will join together against a common foe — cancer.

Leaders from the universities’ cancer centers will kick-off the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium on June 1 in Chicago. They are uniting to transform cancer research through collaborative oncology trials that leverage the scientific and clinical expertise of the Big Ten universities.

“Tremendous strengths exist in the cancer centers of the Big Ten,” said Patrick J. Loehrer Sr., M.D., director of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. “This is a rare opportunity for the  universities to work together as part of a regional team science initiative to advance cancer research. The advantage of this, particularly during a time of austerity for research, is that we can build upon the strengths of the institutions and fortify some of the shortcomings. This allows us to be lean, efficient, but most importantly, collaborative.”

Steven T. Rosen, M.D., director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, added: “By uniting to transform cancer research through collaborative oncology trials, we will be able to leverage the scientific and clinical expertise of the Big Ten Universities. The consortium will benefit patients because researchers will work together to turn ideas into potential new treatments. I view this as the beginning of a broad spectrum of potential research, training and care initiatives that will benefit our patients and society.”

The clinical trials that will be developed will be linked to molecular diagnostics, enabling researchers to understand what drives the cancers to grow and what might be done to stop them from growing. Read More