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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
Bruner, Deborah Watkins

Nrg Oncology Foundation, Inc.
United States

NRG Oncology NCORP Research Base-BIQSFP 3UG1CA189867-11S2 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Bruner, Deborah Watkins

Nrg Oncology Foundation, Inc.
United States

NRG Oncology NCORP Research Base-BIQSFP 3UG1CA189867-11S2 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Bryan, Angela

University Of Colorado
United States

Cannabis for Palliative Care in Cancer: A Placebo-controlled Randomized Trial of Full Spectrum Hemp-derived CBD/THC 5R01CA284860-03 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Bryan, Angela

University Of Colorado
United States

Cannabis for Palliative Care in Cancer: A Placebo-controlled Randomized Trial of Full Spectrum Hemp-derived CBD/THC 5R01CA284860-03 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Bryan, Angela

University Of Colorado
United States

Cannabis for Palliative Care in Cancer: A Placebo-controlled Randomized Trial of Full Spectrum Hemp-derived CBD/THC 5R01CA284860-03 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Bryan, Angela

University Of Colorado
United States

Cannabis for Palliative Care in Cancer: A Placebo-controlled Randomized Trial of Full Spectrum Hemp-derived CBD/THC 5R01CA284860-03 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Buczynski, Matthew Wallace

Virginia Polytechnic Inst And St Univ
United States

Anti-nociceptive actions of CART II in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy 5R01CA284075-03 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Buczynski, Matthew Wallace

Virginia Polytechnic Inst And St Univ
United States

Anti-nociceptive actions of CART II in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy 5R01CA284075-03 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Buis, Lorraine R

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor
United States

MyGI Diet for Colorectal Cancer Prevention 5R01CA255743-04 Nancy J. Emenaker, Ph.D., RDN, LD, FAND
Burgess, Mark Thomas

Sloan-Kettering Inst Can Research
United States

Clinical assessment of radiotherapy-induced vaginal toxicity with multiparametric ultrasound imaging 5R21CA290252-02 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Buszczak, Michael

Ut Southwestern Medical Center
United States

Developing ribosome biogenesis inhibitors for the prevention of cancer 5UG3CA290312-02 Kajal Biswas, Ph.D.
Butler, Kathleen Yost

Corewell Health
United States

Cancer Research Consortium of West Michigan (CRCWM) 3UG1CA189860-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Butler, Kathleen Yost

Corewell Health
United States

Cancer Research Consortium of West Michigan (CRCWM) 3UG1CA189860-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Butryn, Meghan

Drexel University
United States

Efficacy of a multi-level intervention designed to promote adherence to WCRF/AICR dietary guidelines for cancer prevention 1R01CA288323-01A1 Nancy J. Emenaker, Ph.D., RDN, LD, FAND
Cai, Long

California Institute Of Technology
United States

Understanding the role of tumor microenvironment in low grade glioma progression to malignancy 4U01CA294551-02 Sidney Fu, M.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