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Discovery and Development of Natural Products for Cancer Interception and Prevention (DDNP-CIP)

There are ~500,000 semi-purified products of plants, marine life, and microbes in the NCI Natural Product Collection

The Discovery and Development of Natural Products for Cancer Interception and Prevention Program (DDNP-CIP) supports the discovery and development of new natural products that are safe, non-toxic, and useful for cancer interception and prevention. Given the wide range of chemical diversity found in natural products around the world, they present an opportunity to discover biologically active compounds with unique structures and mechanisms of action. However, only a small percentage of them have been screened and evaluated for their potential in cancer prevention. NCI has one of the most diverse libraries of semi-purified natural product fractions in the world that are readily available to the research community for further testing. DDNP-CIP investigators are using new techniques, including high-throughput screening strategies, to screen natural products for activity in pathways to intercept and prevent cancer.

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About DDNP-CIP

The Discovery and Development of Natural Products for Cancer Interception and Prevention (DDNP-CIP) Program’s overall research objectives are to:

  • Identify and select clinically relevant cancer interception and prevention pathways and targets in natural products;
  • Develop robust high-throughput screening strategies and specific cell-based and/or cell-free assays to screen non-toxic natural agents;
  • Screen, purify, and identify the structure of active natural compounds;
  • Develop models that could be used to guide the selection of preventive agents active in assays.

The flow chart below shows the steps for discovery and development of natural products for cancer prevention The National Cancer Institute supports the process across divisions and the NCI Program for Natural Product Discovery (NPNPD). In addition, the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) supports this process.

Flow chart of the DDNP-CIP
The research may use a design along the continuum (such as clinically relevant cancer interception target selection and verification in both preclinical in vivo and clinical samples, assay development or validation, prototype high-throughput screening (HTS), pilot and full scale HTS using NCI libraries with greater than 500,000 semi-purified NP samples or investigator owned libraries, optimization of drug leads (through medicinal chemistry efforts), purification and structural elucidation of active natural compounds, secondary screening, in vivo testing, and dose optimization) with the NCI DCP, DCTD or NCATS support. Once promising interventions with in vivo efficacies and lack of toxicities are identified, these natural agents can enter the NCI PREVENT pipeline for advanced preclinical development followed by moving to clinical trials through CP-CTNet program.


Investigators in the Discovery and Development of Natural Products for Cancer Interception and Prevention take advantage of NCI’s large library of “ready-to-screen,” pre-fractionated natural products to speed up bioassay-directed isolation and characterization of potential prevention agents. New natural agents discovered will move to the existing advanced preclinical development program, PREVENT, for further development towards early phase cancer prevention clinical trials by the Cancer Prevention Clinical Trials Network.

Funding Opportunity

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Grantee Details

PI Name Sort descending PI Organization Title Grant Number Program Official
Herman, James G.

University Of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
United States

Optimizing Ultrasensitive DNA methylation detection for lung cancer and other malignancies 5U2CCA271885-04 Wendy Wang, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Herrmann, Joerg

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

TrAstuzumab Cardiomyopathy Therapeutic Intervention with Carvedilol (TACTIC) Trial 5R01CA233610-06 Eileen Dimond, R.N., M.S.
Herrmann, Joerg

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

TrAstuzumab Cardiomyopathy Therapeutic Intervention with Carvedilol (TACTIC) Trial 5R01CA233610-06 Eileen Dimond, R.N., M.S.
Hilakivi-Clarke, Leena A.

University Of Minnesota
United States

Effect of maternal obesity on breast cancer among offspring: role of the gut microbiota 5R01CA276775-03 Amit Kumar, Ph.D.
Hill, Joshua Aiden

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
United States

Immunoglobulin Replacement Therapy and Infectious Complications After CD19-Targeted CAR-T-Cell Therapy 5R01CA276040-03 Nancy J. Emenaker, Ph.D., RDN, LD, FAND
Hitchins, Megan P

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Ctr & Res Inst
United States

Discovery and verification of methylated circulating tumor DNA markers for the detection of colorectal cancer in subjects under 50 years of age 7R01CA252042-05 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Hollingsworth, Michael A.

University Of Nebraska Medical Center
United States

Pancreatic Cancer Detection Consortium 5U01CA210240-09 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Hoshida, Yujin

Ut Southwestern Medical Center
United States

Therapeutic modulation of a proteomic HCC risk signature with statins in patients with liver cirrhosis 4U01CA288375-03 Sidney Fu, M.D.
Houghton, A Mcgarry

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
United States

Tumor-specific autoantibodies for SCLC early detection 5R01CA243328-06 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Howitt, Brooke E

Stanford University
United States

Unraveling heterogeneity in endometrial cancer via integrated single cell genotype-phenotype mapping 1R37CA303960-01 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Hruska, Carrie B

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

Density MATTERS Clinical Trial 5R01CA239200-05 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Hsu, Li

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
United States

Statistical Methods for Precision Prevention 1R01CA297681-01 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Hu, Shuiying

Ohio State University
United States

Targeting neuronal transport to ameliorate vincristine neurotoxicity 5R01CA272254-03 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Hu, Jim

Weill Medical Coll Of Cornell Univ
United States

Pelvic fascia spARing radical prostatectomy TrIAL (PARTIAL) 5R01CA259173-04 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Hu, Shuiying

Ohio State University
United States

Targeting neuronal transport to ameliorate vincristine neurotoxicity 5R01CA272254-03 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.

A pre-application webinar was held on May 5, 2023, and recorded. The next application due date is June 13, 2025. 

Program Contact(s)

Altaf Mohammed, Ph.D. 
Email: altaf.mohammed@nih.gov