# Development and Cancer Scientific Program

> **NIH NIH P30** · UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $35,011

## Abstract

Our current understanding of human cancer highlights the importance of aberrant developmental programs in 
cancer pathogenesis. With this in mind, leadership of the Simmons Cancer Center created the Development 
and Cancer (DC) Scientific Program as one of its pillars. 
Program membership continues to reflect efforts to comprehensively reach across the campus by flanking 
laboratory researchers with physician-scientists. The 34 members drawn from 16 departments include 16 
faculty members with formal clinical or clinician-scientist training, perfectly poised to close the gap between the 
bench and bedside. The DC Program includes investigators from the fields of cancer, stem cell, and 
developmental biology, exploiting existing strengths and recent recruitments, to tackle the crucial questions 
that will allow us to improve cancer diagnosis, therapy, and ultimately, prevention. Complementing the other 
scientific programs in the Cancer Center, DC members investigate the developmentally and evolutionarily 
conserved ancestral themes that are fundamental to cell and organism growth, development, and physiology, 
and how these factors influence cancer biology. To cover such diverse developmental properties, DC leaders 
identified five themes that form the core structure of the program: 
• Theme 1. Tumor-Stroma Interactions; 
• Theme 2. Oncogene and Tumor Suppressor Gene Biology; 
• Theme 3. Cancer Cell Programming; 
• Theme 4. Epigenetics and Cell Fate; and 
• Theme 5. Stem Cell Biology. 
The current NCI ($4.1 million) and total peer-reviewed funding ($24.9 million) nearly doubles the grant funding 
at the program’s inception in 2009. Critically, several funded projects represent multi-investigator efforts within 
and beyond our institution. DC Program members have authored 327 peer-reviewed publications since the 
past review, nearly doubling the productivity for the three years prior to the most recent review. The 
manuscripts with intra-programmatic (13%) and inter-programmatic (36%) footprints nearly doubled as well, 
and 24% of them included investigators from other NCI-designated cancer centers.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10260731
- **Project number:** 3P30CA142543-10S3
- **Recipient organization:** UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** STEPHEN X SKAPEK
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $35,011
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2010-08-03 → 2021-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10260731

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10260731, Development and Cancer Scientific Program (3P30CA142543-10S3). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10260731. Licensed CC0.

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