Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program (PPTP)

The NCI-supported Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program (PPTP) is a comprehensive program to systematically evaluate new agents against childhood solid tumor and leukemia models. The PPTP is supported through an NCI research contract to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH) with Dr. Peter Houghton as the Principal Investigator. Testing occurs both at SJCRH and also at subcontract sites that have expertise in specific childhood cancers.

The primary goal of the PPTP is to develop high quality preclinical data to help pediatric oncology researchers identify new agents that will show significant activity when clinically evaluated against selected childhood cancers. By facilitating development of a more reliable pediatric new agent prioritization process, the PPTP can contribute to the goal of identifying more effective treatments for children with cancer. Detailed information about the PPTP and its testing procedures is available.

The PPTP has collaborated with more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies to test novel agents against the PPTP’s pediatric preclinical models. To facilitate collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, the PPTP uses a model MTA, the terms of which have been accepted by all of the testing sites. The process for selecting agents for evaluation by the PPTP involves a written application and then review by the NCI Pediatric Drug Development Group.

The primary mechanism by which the PPTP disseminates its results to the pediatric oncology research community is through presentations at cancer research meetings and through peer-reviewed publications. A complete list of the PPTP presentations and publications is available at the PPTP web site.

Questions concerning the PPTP can be addressed to the PPTP Project Officer, Dr. Malcolm Smith (Malcolm.Smith@nih.gov).