DoD Ovarian Cancer Research Program Video

Introduction [over music "I Will Not Fall"]

MOLLY BREWER, D.V.M., M.D.; University of Connecticut Health Center; Integration Panel Member: As an oncologist, I take care of women with ovarian cancer. For example, in the last week I had four patients go into Hospice Care. The really devastating thing about it is that I can look at 10 women and I know that in five years 8 of them will be dead. But I don't know which ones of those 8 will be dead. They can all look exactly the same. I can't predict it. So if we could change this disease, it would make such a difference for the women I take care of.

The DoD Ovarian Cancer Research Program
Changing the Odds
[Title Graphic over music]

ELIZABETH SWISHER, M.D.; University of Washington; Principal Investigator: Most women who present with ovarian cancer have advanced disease and the mortality is very high so that there are few survivors of ovarian cancer. Our screening is not effective so we don't pick up cancers early, but also the biology of the disease is very aggressive. And we understand very little about how the cancer starts since most women already have an advanced cancer when they're diagnosed.

Did You Know? In 2012, over 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. [Graphic Text]

SANTO NICOSIA, M.D.; University of South Florida; Principal Investigator: If the cancer is discovered at the early stage, so Stage 1, the survival is excellent, probably 85 or 90-percent or better. But if, as usually it's the case, it's discovered late stage, survival is less than 30-percent.

Did You Know? In 2012, an estimated 15,500 women will die from this disease in the U.S. [Graphic Text]

BREWER: We kind of have a standard of care in terms of treatment, but we don't know who it's going to work for. We really don't have any way of predicting who that's going to work well for.

ROBERT KURMAN, M.D.; Johns Hopkins University; Principal Investigator: Because the likelihood of recurrence is so high, these patients - depending on a variety of factors - receive what's called cytotoxic chemotherapy and I should underline toxic because the patients going through treatment of ovarian cancer suffer tremendously. The cure in some ways is almost worse than the disease. So, how can we make some inroads?


The OCRP... A Different Approach

PATRICIA DONAHOE, M.D.; Massachusetts General Hospital; Ovarian Cancer Academy Dean: The DoD has brought leaders in the field of ovarian cancer together and said, "Okay, what can we do differently? What mechanisms can we put in place?"

Did You Know? Since FY97, the OCRP has managed almost $200M in Congressional appropriations. [Graphic Text]

JONATHAN LANCASTER, M.D., Ph.D.; H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center; Principal Investigator: My experiences with the DoD Program actually started as a reviewer performing scientific review for other grant applications. I think it was during that process I realized the breadth and depth of applications that they receive, but also their open-mindedness to fund research that's really going to make a difference, going to have an impact, going to potentially change the way we manage patients with ovarian cancer. It was that that really stimulated me to pursue my own applications to the DoD.

KAREN MASON; Ovarian Cancer National Alliance; Consumer Reviewer: The interesting thing about the DoD OCRP is that they fund proposals that are high-risk and hopefully have high-yield.

MICHAEL SEIDEN, M.D., Ph.D.; Fox Chase Cancer Center; Integration Panel Chair: The amount of science that needs to be covered to really get a global understanding of ovarian cancer is massive. And at the same time, the ovarian cancer research community as compared to say the breast cancer community or the prostate cancer community is much smaller. So it does bring both special opportunities for researchers because there's a lot of room to make a difference, but it also requires the community - the ovarian cancer community - to work hard to recruit young scientists, young clinical researchers into the field because we need more individuals to commit their time, energy, and talent to the problem.

Did You Know? The DoD OCRP is the 2nd leading federal funding agency for ovarian cancer research in the U.S. [Graphic Text]


Developing New Investigators

MARTIN MCINTOSH, Ph.D.; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Principal Investigator: When you enter a new field, when anybody goes across the boundary of where they were initially trained, that's kind of risky and hard to do. And the OCRP funds people, a lot of people, to make that move.

Did You Know? Since inception, the OCRP has awarded over 270 research grants. [Graphic Text]

KARIN RODLAND, Ph.D.; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Integration Panel Member: It's important to bring new investigators into ovarian cancer research because the fresh look is often the thing that solves the problem. And you have to replenish the pipeline of bright, talented, trained investigators. And you do that by giving them an opportunity to shine and an opportunity to do the research that interests them, and guiding them in the direction of having that be ovarian cancer. Did You Know? Grant recipients include both laboratory scientists and clinicians. [Graphic Text]

PATRICIA KRUK, Ph.D.; University of South Florida; Principal Investigator: I became involved in the OCRP as a junior faculty and that's one of the benefits of the program in that it supports the beginning careers of a lot of new young investigators.

DENISE CONNOLLY, Ph.D.; Fox Chase Cancer Center; Principal Investigator: My interests were focused on developing mouse models of ovarian cancer and the DoD grant that I received gave me that kick-start to start this laboratory.

DONOHOE: The Ovarian Cancer Research Program established an Academy for young investigators who were finishing their Post-Doctoral training and moving into becoming instructors and assistant professors in academic centers.

Did You Know? The Ovarian Cancer Academy is a unique, virtual interactive collaboration. [Graphic Text]

RUGANG ZHANG, Ph.D.; The Wistar Institute; Ovarian Cancer Academy Investigator: I was trained as a basically how they call a molecular and cellular biologist. It is through the DoD OCRP Ovarian Program that I truly transformed into an ovarian cancer researcher.

RONALD ALVAREZ, M.D.; University of Alabama at Birmingham; Ovarian Cancer Academy Mentor: I think this investment is going to pay off big time as we see these young people mature and their research advance, and hopefully make some promising new discoveries in ovarian cancer that we can utilize to help the patients that we take care of who are affected by this disease.


Encouraging Innovation

MACINTOSH: I think the most important aspect of the OCRP is its focus on innovative, high-risk, high-benefit research. This research I just got funded through the OCRP, I initially sent it through the National Cancer Institute. And one of the reviewers had responded that if the work was successful could revolutionize cancer research, in general. The next sentence said however it's risky because it's not guaranteed to work. And so I just turned around and I sent it to the OCRP. They recognized that the hypothesis of the things we're looking for may exist is solid. And if it does exist it could revolutionize cancer research. And to them that was enough. So I think my research group is living proof that the OCRP is living up to its mission.

NICOLE URBAN, Sc.D.; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Principal Investigator: The focus on innovation and impact did start with the DoD and I think it's one of the things that has made that program as successful as it has been. They're not just funding people based on track record and preliminary work; they're looking for some real commitment to making a difference in the disease - the impact part - and they want to see something new and different, something that will be paradigm changing.

Did You Know? Novel award mechanisms focus on new paradigms to accelerate progress. [Graphic Text]

LINDA MALKAS, Ph.D.; City of Hope Beckman Research Institute; Integration Panel Member: It can be a new technology. It can be a new person that's never looked at a particular disease area before, or bringing in actually something that's used in another area that's never been brought to a particular disease area.

RODLAND: Sometimes it's just putting the pieces together in a different way; instead of connecting A to B to C, let's go A to D to G. Sometimes it's something really exciting and you see a young new innovator who just has a fresh idea. They've found a new gene that nobody else has studied before that they think is very important to causing ovarian cancer. And that could be a new drug target. That's the kind of thing that really excites you.


Emphasis on Impact & Need

SEIDEN: The funding gets sort of re-visioned or re-evaluated every year. Is there a particular high impact need for funding? Is there a particular population of the research community that would benefit greatly from funding? Are there new paradigms available that really have an urgent need for investigation? And the OCRP and all the DoD based research programs have a mechanism where the emphasis of the funding can shift year to year.

URBAN: The Integration Panel defines the mechanisms and the solicitations and then they look at the letters of intent and invite the proposals that they think look promising. And then there's scientific review and then the scientific review results come back to the Integration Panel and decisions are made. The proposals are not necessarily funded in order of the ranking out of the scientific review. And I think that that's good in the sense that the Integration Panel is made up of people who are working in the field of ovarian cancer and understand what's needed in that field.

KRUK: Being a reviewer on these DoD panels is really a unique experience because not only as a scientific reviewer am I there to judge the scientific merit of a potential grant application, but it's also a constant reminder that we need to be innovative and we need to be focused and to have a product, end-product that could be clinically applicable. And this is always emphasized by the presence of consumer reviewers within the panel review. They put a real face to the disease and a reminder of what we are doing and why we are there.


The Consumer Perspective

MASON: Nobody uses patient advocates quite like the DoD. The Integration Panel is comprised of 13 to 15 people; we have three patient advocates and the other 12 are MDs, PhDs, and we all have a totally equal voice whether it comes to voting or discussion and they just so take into account everything that you have to offer.

Did You Know? More than 130 ovarian cancer survivors have been involved with the OCRP. [Graphic Text]

PATRICIA GOLDMAN; Ovarian Cancer National Alliance; Consumer Reviewer: What we can bring is the practical experience. We know about toxicities of some treatments. So a scientist may look at a certain proposal and view it from the same point of what can this do in the laboratory, but when we look at something we say what's this going to do to the patient?

JUDI GORDON; SHARE; Consumer Reviewer: It's not enough just to fund something that is going to maybe bring small benefit but at great cost to the patient. And I think we, as consumers, can put our finger on that. We know what we went through, what women are going through in their treatment and so I think that we are really looking for proposals that will not harm a patient.

SEIDEN: And because so much of our funding is supported by the advocates working with their representatives to sort of maintain this funding, I think it really sets up a wonderful synergy between the researchers and the advocates and that second level of review after the primary research review.


Leveraging Researchers & Their Resources

RODLAND: I think there is a realization in the 21st Century in the Information Age that the biggest progress is going to be made by combining resources, by giving the most people possible access to the databases. Leveraging is important for the Ovarian Cancer Research Program because resources are tight and it's very important to get the most benefit out of what we're doing.

Did You Know? Translational Leverage Awards mechanisms leverage existing human-based ovarian cancer resources for maximum use. [Graphic Text]

MARY DALY, M.D., Ph.D.; Fox Chase Cancer Center; Principal Investigator: The DoD grants began a new model of almost requiring that people from different disciplines work together to solve the ovarian cancer problem.

KURMAN: When this RFA came out for a project that would create a consortium that would focus on elucidating the events that led to the development of early cancer--that really intrigued us. By bringing different disciplines, by bringing the epidemiologists, by bringing the biostatisticians, by bringing in the molecular biologists and the pathologists and the gynecologist you get a full picture of the disease. So I think collaborative research is really the way to go.

Did You Know? The OCRP Consortium consists of Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering, University of Toronto, and Yale University. [Graphic Text]

CONNOLLY: I had an opportunity to collaborate with an investigator from Delaware State University. His name is Noureddine Melikechi and he is not an ovarian cancer researcher at all. He's a physicist. And he came to me and said I'm very interested in applying my cutting edge physics techniques to ovarian cancer biology. Will you help me? And our collaboration continues and we still continue to work on this project.

SWISHER: Ovarian cancer is a deadly disease and in order to make progress I think you have to put all the best minds and resources together. You have to make tissues more widely available to researchers that don't have tissues themselves. You have to make data widely available so that people can use different perspectives to analyze it than the people that maybe originally collected that data. So the more minds you have working together the more you're going to push progress forward.

Did You Know? Women diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer have a 5-year survival rate of 28%. [Graphic Text]

Did You Know? Women diagnosed with early-stage ovarian cancer have a 5-year survival rate of 93%. [Graphic Text]


A Diverse Portfolio

CHARLES DRESCHER, M.D.; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Principal Investigator: I have a grant through the DoD OCRP which is entitled Targeting Cell Surface Proteins for Photo Acoustics to detect ovarian cancer early.

KRUK: My current DoD grants are focusing on developing new urinary biomarkers to detect ovarian cancer at any stage, early and late stage disease.

Did You Know? Only 15% of ovarian cancer cases are detected at the localized stage. [Graphic Text]

SWISHER: I received from the DoD a Translational Research Award. The goal of this project was to study the fallopian tube in women who were known to be high risk for developing ovarian cancer but didn't necessarily yet have cancer.

ZHANG: I received the DoD Ovarian Cancer grant to study a phenomenon called a cellular senescence and its role in ovarian cancer development.

LANCASTER: The focus of our research is a Phase 2 trial of Carboplatin plus Triciribine. It's a modified clinical trial based upon the biology of an individual patient's tumor.

NATHALIE SCHOLLER, M.D., Ph.D.; University of Pennsylvania; Principal Investigator: I recently received a Translational Pilot Award from the OCRP. When I chose to be in research, for me it was absolutely clear that it was to make treatment. So for me translational research is critical and it's why I wake up every morning.


Moving the Field Forward

KRUK: The OCRP Programs have been highly focused and have encouraged new investigators; they have encouraged novel interactions among researchers as well as clearly focused on disease detection and disease treatment.

SWISHER: I think that you could look at the OCRP portfolio and see how many top investigators have been funded by the DoD to see how much impact that it has and how many projects started like mine with DoD money.

LANCASTER: For anyone considering submitting an OCRP application I think that it's critical they bear in mind the areas of emphasis. What are the clinical needs of patients with ovarian cancer, what's the impact, and how innovative is the study?

GORDON: I think that the most important message that I can give to researchers that are working on ovarian cancer is that we need to find better treatment. We need to find a cure. We need to find early detection and to intensify their efforts to do that because women are dying every day. Ovarian cancer is a deadly disease and we must find better methods to combat it.


The DoD Ovarian Cancer Research Program
Changing the Odds
[Title Graphic over music]

[Closing credits: "I Will not Fall" was written and recorded by Australian artist, Nat Ripepi. Last year, Nat was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer and is fighting her own battle against this disease.]