NCI-Designated Cancer Center since 1981
Discovering
Better Together
Our Cancer Center is committed to performing impactful translational multi-disciplinary research that addresses unmet clinical needs relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Ze’ev Ronai, Ph.D.
Center Director
Better Scientists
Better Research
Better Life™
Executive Summary
Cancer Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys NCI-Designated Cancer Center since 1981
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (Sanford Burnham Prebys) was founded as the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation in 1976 by Dr. William and Mrs. Lillian Fishman. In 1979, a planning grant from the National Cancer Institute helped establish the current campus on the Torrey Pines Mesa. Two years later, the Institute was awarded NCI-designation through a Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG). In 2021, we mark the 40th year of funding from NCI. As we celebrate this anniversary and the fundamental discoveries that reflect the past success of the Cancer Center, we look to the future and the breakthroughs that will define new cancer paradigms, pathways, targets and therapeutic modalities. Enhanced operation of our Cancer Center will empower collaborative studies across diverse disciplines of our faculty, while integrating
Closing
the Gap
the second-to-none Prebys Drug Discovery Center with clinical partnerships both locally and nationally. These partnerships enable the development of initiatives that will provide the foundation for stratification of patients for newly developed drugs, discovering new biomarkers for early detection, and monitoring disease progression and response to therapy, as well as the basis for new clinical trials of novel drugs originating from the work by Cancer Center faculty.
Since the founding of the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, our Cancer Center scientists have led the way in tackling the most vexing medical challenges and discovering new treatments that improve patients’ lives.
Continuing in this tradition of innovation, we are implementing a bold new strategic plan that aligns with the Institute’s plan and will close the gap between basic medical research and meeting the needs of patients in terms of developing therapies for unmet clinical needs, as well as for getting those therapies to patients as quickly as possible. By closing the gap between science and patient care we are creating a new model for groundbreaking biomedical research that will shepherd only the most impactful science through an accelerated, focused drug development pathway to patients in need. Together
1
SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS
I CANCER CENTER STRATEGIC PLAN 2021–2024
1. Where are we today? 2. Where do we want to be in three years? 3. How do we get there?
2
Where are we today? The first question was subject to an extensive analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities we can leverage and threats that may impede our success. We will continue to build on our strengths and take advantage of key opportunities.
Strengths
Opportunities
• Outstanding science • Collaborative spirit • Prebys Center expertise • Cutting–edge core facilities • Cancer Center Support Grant • San Diego environment
• Recruitment of key expertise • Partnerships with Prebys Center • Collaborate with clinical institutions
• Identify/build new technologies • Enhance Patient Centric Disease Teams
• Fund key pilot projects
3
SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS
I CANCER CENTER STRATEGIC PLAN 2021–2024
Key Objectives
defining our success as an organization Enhancing Cancer Center critical mass, expertise in certain areas, accessibility of clinical material, and ability to advance translational work, provide the basis for future goals and mission that the Cancer Center leadership team aims to accomplish.
Discovering
Better Together
Better Scientists 4
Better Research
Better Life™
Where do we want to be? Building on our strengths and opportunities and recognizing the gaps and risks to be addressed form the foundation for what we seek to achieve over the next three years. Our goal is to identify and advance at least two Cancer Center discoveries that can be further developed by the Institute for clinical evaluation.
MISSION
VISION
To understand the biology of cancer and develop impactful therapies through transformative discovery research.
To develop new cures for cancer through exceptional scientific discoveries.
Three Pillars of Mission: 1. To support an environment that sustains cutting-edge and collaborative cancer research. 2. To work in partnership with our Prebys Drug Discovery Center to establish new medicines for cancer patients. 3. To educate and train the next generation of cancer scientists in a diverse and inclusive environment.
Secure NCI P30 Grant Renewal Cancer Center Programs will be aligned to address tumor heterogeneity, which is a cardinal problem in cancer development and progression. Tumor heterogeneity creates a major obstacle for effective and sustainable therapy, and alignment of our efforts towards this challenge will bring forth enhanced cancer focus and fosters collaborations in our Programs. Expand intra-programmatic collaborations A key NCI expectation is that there should be robust intra-programmatic collaborations, which reflect the success of the program structure, as well as inter-programmatic collaborations. Recognizing the importance of collaboration as a driving force for a successful Cancer Center and for competitive future renewals, the Cancer Center embraces the concept that success to solving cancer problems will be driven by collaborative teams offering complementary expertise. No single lab has the diverse expertise or resources needed to substantiate initial
discoveries or advance them from the preclinical to the clinical stage. Program directors will lead initiatives to enhance collaboration within their programs, initiating meetings of focused interest groups and encouraging collaborative pilot projects, publications and grants. Focus on clinical problems defined by patient data Research will be better focused on clinical problems that emerge from patient data, including resistance to therapy and metastasis prevention. The commitment to address these cardinal problems in collaboration with clinical and diverse basic research experts is integral to our success. Leverage improved technological capabilities We are implementing changes to our day-today activities and improving technological capabilities as part of the framework to provide Cancer Center members access to tools and expertise that will enable innovative research and lead to improved patient care. 5
SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS
I CANCER CENTER STRATEGIC PLAN 2021–2024
How do we get there? Sanford Burnham Prebys has recently updated the Institute long-term strategic plan
The overarching Sanford Burnham Prebys Strategic Plan is focused on translating basic discoveries into clinical impact, for the betterment of a patient’s life. Institute-wide, a number of enhancements are planned to accelerate the transition from discovery to translation.
These include: GemFinder, a mechanism to identify the most promising initiatives that will be developed further toward clinical evaluation; Catalyst, which will secure a fast pace for advancing discoveries to the clinic; and P2E, a philanthropy-based initiative to support the above operations.
For
Better Life
Better Scientists 6
Better Research
Better Life™
The NCI-designated Cancer Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys will be integral to achieving the goals of the Institute’s translational activities. Planned initiatives include:
We have a strong foundation from which to build:
• Our shared resources promote
state-of-the art cancer research;
• Enhancing the infrastructure within the Cancer
• Developmental funds enable new initiatives,
Center for collaborative studies;
collaborations, and recruitments;
• Integrating expertise from drug discovery and
• Our training and education core provides a full
clinical centers of excellence into Cancer Center activities; and
continuum of educational, training, mentoring, and career-enhancing opportunities for our team; and
• Fostering collaborations between the Sanford
Burnham Prebys Cancer Center members and encouraging collaborations with experts in other cancer centers.
• Our continued efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce will foster creative and innovative science.
Cancer Center
Center for Aging and Regeneration
P2E Venture Fund $
Better
Patient Impact
Sanford Children’s Health Research Center Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center Graduate School
Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics
GemFinder
Catalyst
Encore
7
SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS
I CANCER CENTER STRATEGIC PLAN 2021–2024
Planned
Initiatives
Discovering
Better Together
Better Scientists 8
Better Research
Better Life™
Collaborative projects Several mechanisms are implemented to enhance inter- and intra-programmatic collaborations among Cancer Center members. These include:
• Collaborative program meetings among
two of the three Cancer Center programs;
• Informal Cancer Center luncheons where select members from each of the three programs highlight a novel discovery;
• Engagement of Prebys Center members with Cancer Center initiatives; and
• A monthly newsletter, highlighting novel
collaborative / translational opportunities.
In addition, pilot funding will be provided to initiate and support projects that incorporate intra- and inter-programmatic themes, addressing different aspects of tumor heterogeneity along the Cancer Center mission. These projects will lead to sustainable collaborations and ultimately collaborative publications and grants. A minimum of three funded projects each year is expected.
Translational Initiatives Developing clinical partnerships is a top priority, which will provide access to clinical and pathology expertise and access to patient samples. The ability to establish a strong pre-clinical pipeline to develop novel therapeutic modalities will be further advanced toward clinical evaluation, in partnership with clinical leaders and the support of a pharma/ biotech alliance. To enhance these initiatives, pilot funding will be provided to select translational projects, so that they can reach the proof-of-concept phase in pre-clinical evaluation, enabling the collaborative partnerships mentioned above.
As of September 2021, two initiatives are already underway:
• The Cancer Center is engaged in a
collaborative grant initiative with Cedars Sinai Cancer Institute, whereby nine projects are funded, with the expectation that two or three may proceed to advanced clinical phase evaluation.
• A clinical partnership is being explored
with a number of comprehensive cancer centers including Scripps MDACC, Oregon Health Science Center, NYU, Mayo Clinic and USC.
C3 initiatives The Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center has been part of the Cancer Centers Council, or C3, a collaborative effort between the three NCI-designated cancer centers in the San Diego area (UC San Diego, Salk Institute, and Sanford Burnham Prebys) to leverage collective talents and resources. The C3 offers a unique opportunity to diversify expertise by integrating expertise from each of the cancer centers. For example, the Salk Institute Cancer Center has contributed to the C3 by providing viral vector core expertise, a wealth of viral constructs that served scientists at both UC Moores Cancer Center and Sanford Burnham Prebys. The contribution of UC San Diego to the C3 has been clinical expertise and samples, to be enhanced by a Pathology Core. The C3 has united cancer researchers across the three institutes by sponsoring collaborative research grants (supported by Pedal the Cause, an annual bike ride-based fundraiser in San Diego), an annual workshop that is organized by C3 members, and hosting monthly San Diego-wide technology workshops on single cell sequencing and spatial-omics since 2016.
Tumor-homing peptides (green) accumulate in brain tumor tissue (red) but not in normal cerebellum (purple) from a mouse model of the pediatric brain tumor medulloblastoma. (Lianne Chau, Wechsler-Reya Lab)
9
SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS
I CANCER CENTER STRATEGIC PLAN 2021–2024
Partnership with the Prebys Center
The Prebys Center, another unit of Sanford Burnham Prebys, is a group of more than 50 scientists led by industry experts in drug discovery. They help establish screening campaigns for new drugs, improve newly discovered lead compounds, and create powerful testing funnels that evaluate the most effective means to intervene—or to modulate a newly discovered target. When their task is completed, the asset is typically handed to a pharmaceutical or clinical partner for further development and evaluation. We plan to integrate Prebys Center members into Cancer Center Programs to facilitate translational projects. They will partner with the deputy director for Translational Research in the Cancer Center and with program directors, to oversee the program portfolio and to interact with program members to catalyze new collaborative initiatives with the Prebys Center. A committee of Cancer Center and Prebys Center experts will be utilized to decide which projects are granted pilot funding to enable
10
initial development of select translational initiatives. The main goal is to generate a data package that could lead to a grant submission, as well as an assessment by the Institute’s GemFinder for further advances.
Patient Centric Disease Teams
Focus on a specific tumor type (i.e., pancreatic, AML) or fundamental process underlying tumor progression or therapy resistance (i.e., rewired cell signaling impacting epigenetics, metabolism) has prompted the development of disease focus teams. These teams include members of the nearby institutions, from UC San Diego, Scripps and Salk, often led by SBP Cancer Center members. In the interest of advancing the clinical impact of these teams, members of the clinical centers noted above (i.e., Scripps-MDACC; UCSD) will be integrated into each of the existing teams. This will not only ensure discussion of clinically relevant problems, but also enable collaboration, access to patient material (which was not previously possible), and engagement of clinicians that will lead new clinical trials.
Navigating discoveries
toward the therapeutics of tomorrow Our scientists are always looking for novel ideas, partners and new ways of doing groundbreaking research to target cancer.
Discovering
Better Together
Better Scientists
Better Research
Better Life™ 11
SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS
I CANCER CENTER STRATEGIC PLAN 2021–2024
Cutting–Edge Core Services
A select number of shared resources will be upgraded with respect to technology and personnel. This includes advancing the ability to perform single cell and spatial transcriptomics within the genomics and imaging shared resource. Enhanced capabilities for the proteomics and the metabolomic cores will enable assessment of re-wired metabolic pathways, while enabling large scale assessment of select post-translational modifications, respectively. Enhanced CRISPR technology for in vivo screening is being incorporated into our shared resources, as well. Enhanced computational capabilities are being integrated into our computational core, enabling the analysis of complex clinical data sets, coupled with recruitment of additional experts to the computational shared resource, an essential requirement for each cancer-based project.
Their expertise will align with and enhance the focus area of tumor heterogeneity, in the specialized fields covered by each of the programs.
Community Outreach
Engage and expand our Community Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB plays an integral part of many of the Cancer Center’s initiatives. These include:
• Training and educational activities of
Cancer Center graduate students and postdocs
• Advocacy in research grants and Patient Centric Disease Teams
• Building partnerships between patients and science
Training We will integrate education and training with fundamental cancer research. Training programs will traverse a continuum of initiatives, beginning in high school, spanning graduate and post-graduate training, and then mentoring junior faculty. This initiative also includes community engagement, with an emphasis on connecting with traditionally under-represented groups, in order to foster individuals with a long-term commitment to the fight against cancer. Maintaining training grants and pursuing other federal opportunities are key components of training activities expected by the NCI.
Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Development of Cancer-Focused Research Pilot funding will be provided to support collaborative cancer research projects in the labs of faculty not currently supported by external cancer funding. A minimum of two funded projects each year is expected.
Recruitment
A minimum of six professor recruits (at assistant, associate and full levels) will be identified to join the NCI-designated Cancer Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys by 2024.
12
Our mission is based on our commitment to promote equal opportunities for all people and to create an environment where everyone can reach their full potential. Our leadership is held accountable to support the practices that promote it. We have created a Cancer Center DEI team that, in coordination with other Institutional DEI committees, identifies and implements strategies to promote a diverse, equitable, and inclusive education, training and working culture. We are aware that bringing together a diverse workforce is vital for the future of cancer research.
The development and success of cancer-focused, collaborative projects is fundamental to the success of the Cancer Center and the renewal of the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant. The recruitment of additional faculty, coupled with the expectation that at least two of the non-cancer funded researchers will become engaged in funded cancer research, is key to fulfilling our goals. Cancer Center members are incredibly talented and dedicated and strive to identify new paths to fight cancer. New paths lead to the identification of new targets that are then coupled with our unparalleled drug discovery center, which enables collaborations that take our basic discoveries to clinical evaluations.
Better Scientists
Better Research
Better Life™
Discovering
Better Together
Better Scientists
Better Research
Better Life™
10901 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037 sbpdiscovery.org
© Sanford Burnham Prebys