Cancer Cooperative Groups and Collaborations

Researchers in Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center collaborate with scientists and clinicians in other organizations worldwide through a range of cancer cooperative groups and other programs to help advance cancer research.

Here's a look at some of these cancer research collaborative efforts.

Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center is a lead academic participating site in the National Clinic Trials Network (NCTN), a cooperative group program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Funding for these participating sites is awarded based on a site's ability to enroll high numbers of patients in NCTN trials and its scientific leadership in the design and conduct of clinical trials.

Many Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center clinical trials are conducted through cooperative groups in the NCTN, including the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. The Cancer Center receives NCI funding to fulfill two key roles for the alliance, serving as its statistics and data center and as its research base for the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP).

To evaluate innovative cancer therapies using a team-based approach, the NCI created the Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN). Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center is a lead academic organization in the network, participating in a phase 1 program integrated with a phase 2 program that allows ETCTN-funded sites the flexibility to expand phase 1 clinical studies quickly.

The Cancer Center serves as the research coordinating center for Academic and Community Cancer Research United (ACCRU). ACCRU is a cancer clinical research network of academic institutions and community oncology practices that collaborates with industry partners to develop and conduct clinical trials and investigator-written studies.

The Cancer Center leads the NCI-funded Lymphoma Epidemiology of Outcomes Study, which plans to enroll more than 12,000 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and follow them over time to learn more about long-term prognosis and survivorship.