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The Wilmot Cancer Institute has received $7.7 million from the National Cancer Institute to support clinical trials over the next six years. The award recognizes Wilmot as the top patient-enrollment site over the last decade within SWOG, a national cancer research cooperative.
“The whole purpose of oncology cooperative groups is to conduct large clinical trials that are meant to be practice-changing—trials that alter the way we treat cancer patients and bring in safer and more effective therapies,” says Paul Barr M.D., assistant director for clinical research at Wilmot and principal investigator for the grant. “It’s an honor to be among the 20 sites that received this award.”
The grant is a Lead Academic Participating Site award that supports the operation of clinical studies. Wilmot became part of the LAPS-funded network in 2019. Its oncologists have enrolled nearly 900 patients in large cooperative group trials, Barr says.
“We firmly believe that membership in the national network enables Wilmot to bring promising investigations to our own cancer community, accelerates advances in cancer biology, and improves patient care, cancer survival, and quality of life for patients,” he says.
Wilmot has been a top participant in the National Clinical Trial Network for 50 years, officials say.
URochester is widely known for its leadership in clinical trials. Its Clinical Research Center supports trials across specialties, including oncology, as researchers work on new therapies. CRC reopened in March after renovations.
The site conducts studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies; cooperative group trials, where patients volunteer to be randomly assigned to protocols that test new therapies or improvements to an existing therapy; and investigator-initiated trials. The latter begin when an oncologist discovers a problem within a smaller group of patients in a certain geographic region and designs a study to serve that patient population, URochester says. Wilmot investigators sponsor these types of studies.
“All of these trials are valuable and benefit patients,” Barr says. “What’s important to note is that this grant and every clinical trial that we offer speaks to a collective effort to bring the best care to patients.
“It’s never one group or one person’s impact,” he adds. “The only way something like the LAPS award gets funded is through collaboration, cooperation, and leadership.”
Smriti Jacob is Rochester Beacon managing editor.
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