PROJECT SUMMARY – DEVELOPMENTAL FUNDS Developmental Funds have played a critical role in supporting transformative advances of the Cancer Center during the last five years. Judiciously allocated and thoroughly monitored, Developmental Funds have significantly advanced the mission of the Cancer Center in three strategic areas: (i) thematic faculty recruitment to create “critical mass” in selected research areas; (ii) creation of a Cancer Center infrastructure to support human subject research; and (iii) expansion of the inter-institutional partnership with the Helen F Graham Cancer Center (HFGCC) for translational and patient-focused cancer research. With the support of Developmental Funds, the Cancer Center recruited three new faculty members during the last Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) budget cycle, adding research depth and collaborative opportunities in the areas of functional genomics, cancer metabolism and mechanisms of metastasis; supported the full development and launch of the Cancer Center’s Biomedical Research Support Shared Resource to manage all aspects of patient-related cancer research, HIPAA-compliant regulatory requirements and tracking of human samples; and expanded the inter-institutional collaboration with the HFGCC, enhancing tissue procurement, secure data transfer and a new, collaborative pilot project program. Presented at the 2013 CCSG renewal as a developing initiative, the Wistar-HFGCC partnership is the first in the nation to bring together two NCI-sponsored programs: an NCI-designated “basic” Cancer Center (Wistar) and a member of the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP, HFGCC). The allocation of Developmental Funds enabled the success of this fully collaborative model of translational cancer research, and in the last five years, Wistar Cancer Center members accessed over 1,800 clinically-annotated tissue samples from the HFGCC, published 15 impactful articles in collaboration with HFGCC clinicians, added gene-editing technologies provided by the HFGCC Gene Editing Institute to the Molecular Screening Shared Resource, opened an investigator-initiated phase I clinical trial at the HFGCC based on Wistar discoveries (NCT02259231) and obtained over $17 million in cancer- related federal funding, including a collaborative, Wistar-HFGCC Program Project grant (P01 CA140043). This trajectory will continue during the next CCSG budget cycle, as strategically planned allocation of Developmental Funds will support (i) faculty recruitment in the thematic areas of functional genomics and tumor immunology; (ii) synergistic collaborative alignment between the Cancer Center and the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center (VIC); and (iii) further expansion of Wistar-HFGCC collaborations in patient-focused cancer research.