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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
Greene, Nicholas Perry

University Of Arkansas At Fayetteville
United States

DEVELOPMENT OF TARGETED APPROACHES IN PREVENTION OF CANCER-CACHEXIA 5R01AR075794-05 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Greene, Nicholas Perry

University Of Arkansas At Fayetteville
United States

DEVELOPMENT OF TARGETED APPROACHES IN PREVENTION OF CANCER-CACHEXIA 5R01AR075794-05 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Grimm, Lars J

Duke University
United States

Dynamic imaging and tissue biomarker models to delineate indolent from aggressive breast calcifications 4R01CA271237-04 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Grogan, Eric L

Vanderbilt University Medical Center
United States

Clinical Utility of Biomarkers Driven Management of Indeterminate Pulmonary Nodules 5R01CA252964-05 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Groninger, J. Hunter

Medstar Health Research Institute
United States

Cognitive behavioral theory-assisted virtual reality for chronic cancer pain (VR-CAN): device prototype development and feasibility testing 1R21CA299799-01 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Groninger, J. Hunter

Medstar Health Research Institute
United States

Cognitive behavioral theory-assisted virtual reality for chronic cancer pain (VR-CAN): device prototype development and feasibility testing 1R21CA299799-01 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Gross, Howard M

Dayton Clinical Oncology Program
United States

Dayton Clinical Oncology Program 3UG1CA189957-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Gross, Howard M

Dayton Clinical Oncology Program
United States

Dayton Clinical Oncology Program 3UG1CA189957-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Grossman, Douglas

University Of Utah
United States

Electrical impedance dermography as a biomarker for basal and squamous cell carcinoma 1R21CA289101-01A1 Nicholas Hodges, Ph.D.
Gudas, Lorraine J

Weill Medical Coll Of Cornell Univ
United States

CD 1530, an RAR Gamma Agonist for Oral Cavity Squamous Cell Carcinoma Prevention 5R01CA270248-03 Anda Vlad, M.D., Ph.D.
Guo, Xingyi

Vanderbilt University Medical Center
United States

Leveraging Omics and Electronic Health Records Data to study Colorectal Adenoma genetics and Drug Repurposing 1R01CA297582-01A1 Gary Della'Zanna, D.O., M.Sc.
Hall, Daniel Lee

Massachusetts General Hospital
United States

Innovating CBT-I for Cancer Survivors: An Optimization Trial 5R21CA279248-02
Hall, Daniel Lee

Massachusetts General Hospital
United States

Innovating CBT-I for Cancer Survivors: An Optimization Trial 5R21CA279248-02
Halmos, Balazs

Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx, Ny)
United States

Montefiore Academic Communicty NCORP Program 3UG1CA189859-11S1 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Halmos, Balazs

Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx, Ny)
United States

Montefiore Academic Communicty NCORP Program 3UG1CA189859-11S1 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.

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