CALIGIURI REVIEWS PROGRESS TOWARD CREATING ‘CANCER-FREE WORLD’

Ohio State’s cancer program is “jelling” as a leader in creating a world free from the onerous burdens of cancer, OSUCCC Director and James CEO Michael A. Caligiuri, MD, said Tuesday.

Delivering his “State of the Cancer Program” address in the Biomedical Research Tower, Caligiuri supported his sunny assessment by noting several achievements of the past year, such as a glowing renewal of the program’s multimillion dollar support grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a top-15 national ranking in NCI research funding and a payoff of $7.8 million from the second annual Pelotonia fundraiser for cancer research at the OSUCCC – James.

“We can all imagine a time, and I think it will be soon, when we will live in a cancer-free world,” Caligiuri told the capacity audience, noting that there are more and more cases of cancer being cured thanks to scientific discoveries that translate to personalized treatments and prevention strategies. “I certainly believe we’re going to achieve this ultimate goal in our lifetime.”

That the cancer program remains in steady pursuit of its vision was evidenced in 2010 by significant signposts that Caligiuri highlighted during his annual address:

• The OSUCCC – James received a near-perfect score on its Support Grant renewal application to the NCI and was recommended to receive another five years of funding for scientific leadership and administration, shared technology and services, and development. The amount will be announced early next year but could exceed $20 million. The renewal will enable Ohio State to retain its status as one of only 40 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers, a designation that the University has maintained since 1976. Caligiuri said the NCI site review team, which ranked the program as “exceptional” – the highest descriptor given – stated that “This Center should serve as the model for other matrix university-based Centers.”

• The OSUCCC – James ranks 14th nationally in annual NCI research funding, which stands at approximately $57 million. Caligiuri said the cancer program would need about $13 million in additional NCI funding to reach the top 10, which is one of its stated goals.

• The past five years have been a period of unprecedented growth at the OSUCCC – James, whose NCI grant funding has grown by 96 percent, including eight multimillion programmatic grants. Substantial increases have also been realized in investigator-initiated therapeutic clinical trials (552, a 258-percent jump), and in collaborative publications (2,069, a 300-percent rise). “Our total of publications in scientific journals during that period is about 4,000, which means that half of them are collaborations among various disciplines – an amazing statistic that shows how people are really working together to produce the best results,” Caligiuri said.

• On Nov. 27, the cancer program received a check for $7.8 million in funds raised by the second annual Pelotonia, a grassroots bicycle tour held in August between Columbus and Athens to generate revenue exclusively for cancer research at the OSUCCC – James. The event attracted 4,047 riders (including 758 from Ohio State), or nearly double the number who participated in the inaugural Pelotonia in 2009, which raised $4.5 million. The first two Pelotonias have raised a combined total of more than $12 million.

• Under the leadership of Gustavo Leone, PhD, and Jeff Mason, director of the Pelotonia Fellowship Program, Pelotonia funds are being used to fund 64 fellowship awards for Ohio State students from multiple disciplines who want to conduct a cancer research project in established labs at the University. Other Pelotonia money is funding 10 “idea grants” for teams of Ohio State scientists with innovative ideas for cancer research who need money to amass data required to apply for larger grants from the NCI. “With NCI funding being so flat in these economic times, our student fellowship awards will help bring new investigators into the field, and our ‘idea grants’ will provide seed money for established investigators with great ideas that can lead to the preliminary data they need to compete for additional grants from the NCI,” Caligiuri said.

• The OSUCCC – James now has 16 Shared Resources available to help all Ohio State investigators with their research projects – resources that are supported by the NCI Support Grant and that would be far more costly for scientists to access from outside sources. In addition, Caligiuri said three new Shared Resources will open in 2011, including Medicinal Chemistry (Pharmacy), Nutrient & Phytochemical (Agriculture), and Solid Tumor Correlative Science (Medicine).

• The NCI awarded 30 new grants to OSUCCC – James researchers in 2010, including an $11.5 million, five-year Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) award for leukemia research to investigators John C. Byrd, MD, Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, and Guido Marcucci, MD. This was Ohio State’s first-ever SPORE grant and only the second ever awarded by the NCI for leukemia research. Among the other large NCI grants in 2010 are $9.6 million to Electra Paskett, PhD, MSPH, for ”Reducing Cervical Cancer in Appalachia,” and $8.6 million to Tim Huang, PhD, for “Interrogating Epigenetic Changes in Cancer Genomes.” Michael Grever, MD, received an $8 million Research Facilities Improvement Program Construction Grant from the National Center for Research Resources, money that Caligiuri said will help “fill out two-thirds of a floor in the Biomedical Research Tower to accommodate 10 to 15 researchers in experimental therapeutics.”

• As for the continuing “build-out” of Ohio State’s Biomedical Research Tower, which opened in 2006, Caligiuri said three floors (4-6) are scheduled for completion in late summer of 2011, and two of those will be devoted to cancer research.

• After years of planning, Ohio State’s Medical Center in June 2010 broke ground for ProjectONE, which will feature a new patient tower that will hold a 276-bed cancer hospital and a 144-bed critical care hospital, along with several floors devoted to outpatient care and support services. All floors will be integrated with space for research and education to foster collaboration and advance knowledge. Construction is targeted for completion in 2014. “It will be a new James Cancer Hospital offering the same incredible care,” Caligiuri said, adding that he believes this will be “the last cancer hospital ever built on this campus.”

• Inpatient admissions at the OSUCCC – James rose to 9,847 in 2010, an increase of 9.3 percent over the previous year. Increases also were recorded in clinic visits (97,669, or 4.9 percent), outpatient visits (222,408, or 6.5-percent), surgical cases (7,098, or 3.9 percent) and Radiation Oncology starts (1,310, or 15.8 percent). “When it’s all said and done, patient care is really what it’s all about,” Caligiuri said. “These increases reflect the fact that cancer is now the number one killer worldwide and also our growing reputation for excellence in science-based cancer care.”

• The hospital’s patient-satisfaction scores for 2010 averaged out at 93.2 percent, Caligiuri reported, “which demonstrates our commitment to putting our patients first.” In addition, he pointed out that the hospital for the second year in a row made the list of 65 top hospitals compiled by The Leapfrog Group, a national coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage who collectively work to improve healthcare quality (see story, below). And for the 12th consecutive year, the OSUCCC – James was listed among America’s Best Hospitals for cancer care by U.S. News and World Report. “At only 20 years old, we are the youngest cancer hospital on that list,” Caligiuri said, explaining that many predate the OSUCCC – James by several decades.

• With a nod toward nursing, Caligiuri said every physician in the hospital “knows that nurses make everything happen. You win with nurses, and I receive numerous compliments for our talented nursing staff every day. We all thank them for their tireless devotion to our patients.” He said nurses at the hospital continually strive to improve through such innovations as their new Clinical Scholars Program, their annual Nursing Research Day, and through their end-of-life nursing education.

• Other clinical innovations at the OSUCCC – James include the opening of a new Acute Leukemia Unit on 10 James and the JamesCare Comprehensive Breast Center, which will open in January 2011 at a new site at 1145 Olentangy River Road (corner of Olentangy River Road and Third Avenue) in Columbus. The new Center will contain more than twice the space of the current JamesCare in Dublin facility and will be the first of its kind in the Midwest to offer the full continuum of breast cancer care – from prevention and treatment to reconstruction and survivorship – under one roof.

• Because clinical trials lead to new standards of cancer care, the OSUCCC – James has been working hard to increase patient accrual to these studies over the past few years. Caligiuri reported that more than 1,350 patients were on therapeutic clinical trials in fiscal 2010, an 8-percent increase over last year, and 8,506 patients were on non-therapeutic trials, a rise of 65 percent. As of Nov. 23, the overall total of active therapeutic clinical trials stood at 459, of which 117 were phase I trials and 76 were initiated by investigators at the OSUCCC – James. “We’ve seen a 58-percent increase in patients going on our own clinical trials, or studies that we thought of and initiated here, even though some of them have been joined by researchers at other institutions,” Caligiuri said.

• Two clinical trials initiated at the OSUCCC – James involve experimental anticancer drugs that were conceived and produced in the laboratory of Ching-Shih Chen, PhD, in a process that Caligiuri called “Mind to the Clinic – targeting pathways of carcinogenesis through structural chemistry.” Over a period of years, he explained, these two drugs “have gone from Dr. Chen’s mind to our patients through new clinical studies.” In recognition of those efforts, Chen recently received Ohio State’s inaugural “Innovator of the Year” award.

• Caligiuri said the OSUCCC – James continues to build its team, noting that it has recruited 159 cancer researchers over the past five years, including several during 2010, and pointing out that many of them are “superstars who are recognized among the world’s leading authorities in their disciplines.” New members of the leadership team during 2010 include: Jeff Walker, MBA, who became the first executive director of the OSUCCC – James; John Byrd, MD, director of the new Division of Hematology; Miguel Calero-Villalona, MD, director of the new Division of Medical Oncology; Michael Lairmore, DVM, PhD, associate director for shared resources; Gustavo Leone, PhD, associate director for basic research; and Richard White, MD, chair of Radiology/Imaging.

• Looking forward, Caligiuri said the OSUCCC – James will continue its quest to become a top-ten institution in NCI grant funding and to further establish itself as a recognized national leader in quality care, patient safety, cancer care delivery, and as an even stronger scientific national authority on this disease in its many forms. “Our future scientific focus will be on the molecular basis of cancer, creating reagents to cure certain cancers, and implementing better prevention and early-detection strategies,” he said.

• Caligiuri claimed that, through multidisciplinary interaction and outside partnerships, Ohio State has “every piece we need to function as a pharmacological company that can create a drug discovery pipeline capable of generating the molecular reagents we need to cure certain cancers and send them to the clinic.” He pointed to partnerships with Battelle Memorial Institute and with Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, College of Pharmacy and College of Medicine, to name a few.

• Observing that the “greatest advances in our lifetime will come from prevention and early detection,” Caligiuri highlighted efforts by Michael Knopp, MD, PhD, Michael Tweedle, PhD, and others to develop radiologic imaging tools that will help understand how molecular biology works and target pathways for prevention while also developing tools to cure microscopic cancer. Equally important, he said, will be the efforts of researchers such as Electra Paskett, PhD, MSPH, and Mary Ellen Wewers, PhD, MSP, RN, to persuade people in high-risk populations, such as those in Appalachian Ohio who suffer from high rates of cervical, lung and other cancers, to alter their behavior and take advantage of programs offered to them for smoking cessation, cancer screening and psychological intervention.

“Overall, our cancer program is doing really well – we’re jelling into a recognized national leader,” Caligiuri said. “But we’ve got a lot more work to do. More and more cancers are being cured, but cancer is not yet conquered. I would love it if all of you would leave here today committed to the notion that together we can create a cancer-free world.”

The “State of the Cancer Program” address in Ohio State’s Biomedical Research Tower also included informational display tables, floor displays and live video feeds in the lobby just outside the auditorium.


Joseph Alutto, PhD, executive vice president and
provost at Ohio State, introduces OSUCCC Director
and James CEO Michael A. Caligiuri, MD, prior to Caligiuri’s
annual “State of the Cancer Program” address.