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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
Milanovich, Samuel J.

Sanford Research/Usd
United States

Sanford Community Cancer Program of the North Central Plains (NCORP) 3UG1CA189825-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Milbury, Kathrin

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Dyadic yoga Program for Patients with Lung Cancer Undergoing Radiotherapy and their Family Caregivers 4R37CA231522-07 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Milbury, Kathrin

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Dyadic yoga Program for Patients with Lung Cancer Undergoing Radiotherapy and their Family Caregivers 4R37CA231522-07 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Milbury, Kathrin

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Dyadic yoga Program for Patients with Lung Cancer Undergoing Radiotherapy and their Family Caregivers 4R37CA231522-07 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Miyano, Masaru

Beckman Research Institute/City Of Hope
United States

Evaluating the ELF5 Clock as a Biomarker in Breast Cancer Prevention Trials 1R03CA300614-01 Sidney Fu, M.D.
Morilak, David A

University Of Texas Hlth Science Center
United States

Therapy-induced cognitive impairment in a rat model of prostate cancer 5R01CA285183-03 John Clifford, Ph.D.
Morilak, David A

University Of Texas Hlth Science Center
United States

Therapy-induced cognitive impairment in a rat model of prostate cancer 5R01CA285183-03 John Clifford, Ph.D.
Morin, Olivier

University Of California, San Francisco
United States

Development of a Personalized Voxel-wise Prediction of Brain Metastases using Multi-Parametric MR Imaging to Reduce Treatment Toxicity 1R01CA292043-01A1 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Morin, Olivier

University Of California, San Francisco
United States

Development of a Personalized Voxel-wise Prediction of Brain Metastases using Multi-Parametric MR Imaging to Reduce Treatment Toxicity 1R01CA292043-01A1 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Moscicki, Anna-Barbara

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

Real-world effectiveness of HPV vaccine in women living with HIV and its impact on cervical cancer screening accuracies 5R01CA281293-03 Maria Silvina Frech, Ph.D., M.S.
Moses, John Edward

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
United States

Discovery of Natural Products and Natural Product Derivatives as Inhibitors of KLK6 to Prevent the Progression of Preneoplastic Ductal Pancreatic Cancer 1UG3CA290364-01A1 Altaf Mohammed, Ph.D.
Mosher, Catherine E

Indiana University Indianapolis
United States

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Patient Fatigue Interference and Caregiver Burden in Advanced Gastrointestinal Cancer 5R01CA289486-02
Mosher, Catherine E

Indiana University Indianapolis
United States

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Patient Fatigue Interference and Caregiver Burden in Advanced Gastrointestinal Cancer 5R01CA289486-02
Mosher, Catherine E

Indiana University Indianapolis
United States

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Patient Fatigue Interference and Caregiver Burden in Advanced Gastrointestinal Cancer 5R01CA289486-02
Mu, Ping

Yale University
United States

Unveiling the Role of UBE2J1 as the E2 Ubiquitin Conjugating Enzyme in Androgen Receptor Degradation 5R01CA292949-03 Indu Kohaar, Ph.D., M.Phil., M.Sc.

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