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.

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
Zarrinpar, Amir	University Of California, San Diego United States	Engineering Native E. coli to Detect, Report, and Treat Colorectal Cancer	5U01CA265719-05	Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Zeng, Melody Yue	Weill Medical Coll Of Cornell Univ United States	Dissecting the interplay between immunoglobulin G and the gut microbiome in cancer progression and metastasis	5R21CA270998-02	Young Kim, Ph.D.
Zhang, Zhen	Johns Hopkins University United States	A multidisciplinary BCC for ovarian cancer early detection: translating discoveries to clinical use with a by-design approach	5U2CCA271891-04	Christos Patriotis, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Zhao, Yingqi	Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center United States	Developing methods for advancing the early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma leveraging electronic medical records data	1R01CA289668-01A1	Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Zhao, Hua	University Of Virginia United States	Homologous recombination repair capacity in peripheral blood lymphocytes as a breast cancer risk factor	4U01CA260731-04	Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Zheng, Qin	Johns Hopkins University United States	Determining the function of medium to large diameter sensory neurons in paclitaxel-induced pain via large-scale in vivo DRG imaging	1R01CA291906-01A1	Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Zheng, Yingye	Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center United States	Precompetitive Collaboration on Liquid Biopsy for Early Cancer Assessment: Data Management and Coordinating Unit	5U24CA288185-03	Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Zheng, Qin	Johns Hopkins University United States	Determining the function of medium to large diameter sensory neurons in paclitaxel-induced pain via large-scale in vivo DRG imaging	1R01CA291906-01A1	Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Zheng, Qin	Johns Hopkins University United States	Determining the function of medium to large diameter sensory neurons in paclitaxel-induced pain via large-scale in vivo DRG imaging	1R01CA291906-01A1	Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Zheng, Yingye	Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center United States	The Early Detection Research Network: Data Management and Coordinating Center	5U24CA086368-25	Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Zheng, Yingye	Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center United States	The Early Detection Research Network: Data Management and Coordinating Center	5U24CA086368-25	Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Zhou, Xianghong Jasmine	University Of California Los Angeles United States	The UCLA Center in Early Detection of Liver Cancer	5U01CA230705-08	Sidney Fu, M.D.
Zhou, Xianghong Jasmine	University Of California Los Angeles United States	Multi-cancer early detection using cell-free DNA methylome analysis	5U01CA285010-03	Nicholas Hodges, Ph.D.
Zhou, Xianghong Jasmine	University Of California Los Angeles United States	Detecting and locating cancer for patients with CT-detected lung nodules	4R01CA264864-04	Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Zhu, Yazhen	University Of California Los Angeles United States	Click Chemistry-Mediated Surface Protein Assay for Quantifying Subpopulations of Hepatocellular Carcinoma-associated Extracellular Vesicles	5R01CA277530-03	Matthew Young, 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

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

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About DDNP-CIP

Funding Opportunity

Grantee Details

Program Contact(s)