ACT Grant Recipients

Georgia CORE is a statewide 501c3 that leverages partnerships and innovation to attract more clinical trials, increase research, and promote education and early detection to improve cancer care for Georgians in rural, urban and suburban communities across the state.

Georgia CORE has received Advancing Cancer Treatment's Community Engagement Grant to help recruit and provide navigation services for participation in the PROMISE Registry. PROMISE is a registry of prostate cancer patients participating in a research study to learn how genetic differences can affect patient outcomes.

The goals of the grant are:

• To identify Black and Latino/Hispanic prostate cancer patients in the Atlanta metro and rural areas of Georgia for participation in the PROMISE Registry Study.
• To navigate patients who are referred from five partner organizations, educating them about the study and reasons for participation.
• To accrue at least 25 patients per year to participate in the PROMISE Registry Study who agree to undergo genetic testing and follow-up in the event they test positive for pathogenic mutations, and to coordinate all work needed to reach this goal.

Georgia CORE's partners for the program are Phoebe Putney Cancer Center in Albany; John B. Amos Cancer Center of Piedmont Columbus Regional; Pearlman Cancer Center at South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta; WellStar North Fulton Medical Center; and Georgia Cancer Specialists (an affiliate of Northside Hospital Cancer Institute) in Decatur.

Set to begin March 1, the two-year grant will partially fund a Clinical Trials Navigator position at Georgia CORE and outreach and engagement work for recruiting.

At UW, the mission is to understand the causes of prostate cancer and its progression, develop new prevention strategies, devise innovative diagnostics and improve survival and quality of life.

Through cutting-edge research, scientists and clinicians provide hope for men with prostate cancer and their families in the Northwest and the world. They have already identified and/or assembled up to 80 percent of the genes expressed in prostate cancer, developed one of the largest serum and tissue banks in the world, undertaken some of the most advanced studies of bone biology and skeletal metastases, assembled information and genotypes for more than 300 families with hereditary prostate cancer and developed many new therapeutic strategies.

An ACT grant supports their collaborative effort in a long-term study that aims to improve knowledge and understanding of the critical role of germline genetic mutations (inherited genes) in men with prostate cancer. PROMISE (A Prostate Cancer Registry of Outcomes and Germline Mutations for Improved Survival and Treatment Effectiveness) may improve treatment options including clinical trial matching.

The Prostate Cancer Program’s research portfolio at Hopkins crosses many specialties and encompasses all aspects of the disease, including new approaches to prostate cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment, understanding the genetic underpinnings of this cancer and population studies that lead to a more complete understanding of disease susceptibility and better ways to improve outcomes for men. Investigators are unraveling the biology of prostate cancer to identify genetic risk factors, the pathology that identifies the most aggressive forms of the cancer, the role of a biological characteristic, known as DNA methylation, in driving the progression of prostate cancer, and how inflammation may influence the disease. Novel targeted therapies are springing from advances in prostate cancer genetics, epigenetics and immunology. A major goal is the development of biomarkers to improve detection, diagnosis, evaluate risk and aggressiveness of disease, and monitor cancers to guide clinicians toward the best therapies for individual patients and away from overtreatment and its resulting quality-of-life impacting side effects.

An ACT grant supports their collaborative effort in a long-term study that aims to improve knowledge and understanding of the critical role of germline genetic mutations (inherited genes) in men with prostate cancer. PROMISE (A Prostate Cancer Registry of Outcomes and Germline Mutations for Improved Survival and Treatment Effectiveness) may improve treatment options including clinical trial matching.

Led by internationally recognized leaders in the field, PCCTC meets critically unmet needs in prostate cancer. Their mission is to design, implement, and complete early-phase process driven clinical trials, translating scientific discoveries to improved standards of care.

An ACT grant supports their collaborative effort in a long-term study that aims to improve knowledge and understanding of the critical role of germline genetic mutations (inherited genes) in men with prostate cancer. PROMISE (A Prostate Cancer Registry of Outcomes and Germline Mutations for Improved Survival and Treatment Effectiveness) may improve treatment options including clinical trial matching. PCCTC will ensure efficient trial selection, reporting, site management, clinical operations and data analysis of the PROMISE study.

Jianqing Lin, M.D., is an Associate Professor of medicine and physician in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the George Washington University (GW) Cancer Center where he co-leads the centers GU Oncology Multidisciplinary Program tasked with encouraging and fostering collaborations between oncologists, urologists, radiologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, population scientists, and basic scientists to enhance clinical and translational research in the areas of prostate, urothelial, kidney, penile, and testicular cancers. An ACT grant support his efforts to test the effectiveness of informational clinical trial videos in helping patients join clinical trials.

GUMDROP (Genito-Urinary Multi-Disciplinary D.C. Regional Oncology Project) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization formed to enhance patient outcomes through greater cancer clinical trial awareness. Clinical trials continually change as the medical community evolves its approach to defeating cancer. The GUMDROP website helps the cancer community filter through the current clinical trials that apply to bladder, kidney and prostate cancers. It is hoped that improved clinical trial awareness and utilization will lead to improved survival and quality of life of patients, ultimately creating a better standard of care for these patients.

All of the activities of GUMDROP and its participating doctors and volunteers currently occur in the Washington DC Metro area. GUMDROP was started informally as an information sharing opportunity for oncologists at a dinner held in April 2011 in Bethesda, MD. It has grown to include 10+ institutions who now collaborate on a regular basis to improve patient care.

Learm more at: GumDropTrials.org