Functions
- Facilitate collaboration, communication, and cooperation involving organizational expertise (e.g., CCR labs and branches, other NCI Divisions, other NIH Institutes and Centers, other Government labs, academia, industry, and other research institutions) experience, knowledge, and ideas in basic and clinical immunology.
- Promote interest in and foster development of new immune-based preventions and therapies.
- Establish bridges among immunologists, virologists, oncologists, and infectious disease physicians.
- Facilitate the incorporation of new technology discoveries (e.g., genomics, proteomics, and imaging) into clinical studies of immune-based preventions and therapies.
- Report on intramural accomplishments that add value to the scientific community.
- Recommend new or enhanced basic and clinical immunology programs to the Director of CCR.
- Serve as a "think tank" in basic, translational, and clinical immunology to provide input and advice to the trans-NIH priority-setting committee.
- Serve as a "laboratory" for testing pilot multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research programs as described in the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research.
- Identify barriers to developing immune-based medicines and recommend solutions to overcome these barriers.
- Provide regulatory, intellectual property, and ethical consulting support for product/clinical development.
- Facilitate access to clinical-grade biologic reagents controlled by companies at the level of patents or production expertise.
Objectives
- Enhance the interaction between the NCI Intramural Program and the extramural community.
- Coordinate translational/clinical research between the intramural and extramural communities.
- Demonstrate “value added” to the extramural communities by the NCI Intramural Program.
- Accelerate the development of new cancer therapies, particularly combined modality therapies.
- Exploit emerging technologies to access more knowledge of the mechanisms involved in these therapies.
- Identify and overcome barriers to product development (e.g., regulatory, intellectual property, and ethical issues).
- Discover new targets and approaches through fundamental research.
Focus
- Cell and molecular immunotherapies
- Vaccines
- Antiviral agents
- Immune-based product discovery, development, and delivery
- Research to identify new targets and approaches
