# Interventional oncology clinical research specialist

> **NIH NIH R50** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $173,119

## Abstract

Interventional Oncology (IO) is emerging as the fourth pillar of cancer care alongside
medical, radiation, and surgical oncology. Interventional oncologists provide minimally invasive
image-guided therapies to treat cancers without the toxicities and disfigurement of chemotherapy,
radiation or surgery. New clinical trial designs and collaborations are essential to determine how
and when IO therapies should be integrated into multidisciplinary care plans to achieve optimal
outcomes for cancer patients. Obstacles to this are many. Trial designs must accommodate
staged and repeatable therapies, which complicates time-to-event analysis. There is a dearth of
interventional oncology clinical investigators, who are needed to build collaborations with other
oncologic disciplines to develop new concepts and protocols for clinical trials. The NCI
cooperative group hierarchy is the domain of medical oncology. Surgical and interventional
concepts struggle to hurdle the many layers of the review process, which is a barrier to the
recruitment and retention of young investigators. Less than 5% of the >100 NCTN trials open at
the applicant’s cancer center involve more than one cancer specialty, a stark indicator of the
deficit in interdisciplinary clinical research. Conducting interdisciplinary trials is fraught with
logistical and administrative challenges when the treating physicians practice in different
departments, which historically is a major determinant of trial failure.
 The role of a senior IO clinical research specialist is to address each of these obstacles at
the institutional and NCTN level. This starts with teaching clinical trial design and execution to a
new cadre of young investigators from all cancer disciplines. Interdisciplinary collaborations can
then be created within and across NCTN institutions to generate new trial concepts investigating
the intersection of systemic and image-guided therapies to create new therapeutic synergies.
Areas ripe for investigation include potentiation of ischemia by targeting HIF activation,
autophagy, and free radical generation; potentiation of selective internal radiation with
radiosensitizers; potentiation of thermal-based therapies to improve ablation margins; ablation
and embolization as immunostimulants to potentiate immune checkpoint inhibition; image-guided
delivery of CAR-T cells into solid tumors; direct injection and intralymphatic administration of
vaccine-based agents; and nanoconstructs for delivery of therapeutic agents. These novel
concepts need to be guided through the labyrinthian NCTN process, and new platforms
developed for execution of interdepartmental clinical trials.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10831957
- **Project number:** 5R50CA276008-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** MICHAEL C SOULEN
- **Activity code:** R50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $173,119
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-05-01 → 2028-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10831957

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10831957, Interventional oncology clinical research specialist (5R50CA276008-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10831957. Licensed CC0.

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