Harvey Herschman, Ph.D. Director

We are fortunate at UCLA that the Medical School, the College of Letters and Sciences, the Dental School, the School of Public Health and the School of Nursing are all located on a single campus, along with both our children's hospital and the main hospital. Selected faculty from all of these academic units are members of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC). A number of full-time faculty at our affiliated institutions are also active members of JCCC. In addition to JCCC, there are numerous other organized research units (e.g., the Molecular Biology Institute, the Brain Research Institute, the Mental Retardation Institute, the Reed Neurological Institute, the UCLA-Department of Energy Laboratory of Structural Biology and Molecular Medicine, the UCLA AIDS Institute, the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and the UCLA Gene Therapy Program) in which basic molecular, cellular, structural, biochemical, pharmacological, organismal and environmental studies are coordinated at UCLA.

The goals of the JCCC Basic Research Programs are to:

1. Bring together colleagues with similar research interests from these various academic units;
2. Provide platforms for these groups to exchange information and ideas;
3. Foster research interactions among the members of these groups;
4. Provide access to shared resources that facilitate their research efforts;
5. Facilitate their efforts to translate their studies into practical advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, management, and cure; and, most importantly,
6. Promote their efforts in understanding basic cellular and organismal functions that are altered in cancer cells.

The objective of the Basic Research Programs is to provide a forum in which faculty members can make their efforts in research to advance the understanding of fundamental mechanisms relating to cancer "greater than the sum of the parts." By providing structured activities such as mini-symposia, retreats, workshops, access to transdisciplinary, collaboration and seed grants, coordinated training grant programs and courses in various aspects of oncology, the Program Areas bring together members of the UCLA faculty with overlapping and complementary interests. These gatherings provide forums to discuss the applications of research to cancer-related problems, opportunities to learn about related work being carried out on this large campus, information about shared resources and information about the availability of alternative sources of support for cancer-directed initiatives. The Program Areas make a difference if their activities:

1. Initiate new collaborations in cancer research;
2. Shift the current UCLA faculty to more cancer-oriented issues;
3. Help to attract to UCLA new faculty who carry out cancer research;
4. Facilitate the acquisition of new information pertinent to ongoing cancer research by our members;
5. Help to improve the research infrastructure at UCLA; and
6. Foster meaningful translational research that brings basic sciences observations into application in clinical contexts.

The Basic Research Programs also make a difference by helping the Directorate of the Cancer Center, the Deans of the School of Medicine, the Dental School, the College of Letters and Sciences, the School of Public Health and the School of Nursing to recognize and understand the needs of the faculty for facilitating cancer research at UCLA. Through the program area directors, the members of these program areas are able to define research areas in which we need to strengthen our representation, to identify deficiencies in our cancer education programs for graduate students and medical fellows, to identify needed improvements in our Shared Resources and other aspects of our research infrastructure and to coordinate efforts in obtaining training grants and fellowship programs. Drs. Judith Gasson, Director of JCCC, and Herschman confer regularly with the Basic Sciences program area directors on issues regarding the Shared Resources, training grant opportunities, fund-raising possibilities, developmental funding needs, opportunities in new faculty recruiting, coordinated training needs and the possibilities for collaborative interactions.