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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
Hanash, Samir M

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Clinical Validation Center for Lung Cancer Early Detection 4U01CA271888-04 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Hanash, Samir M

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Clinical Validation Center for Lung Cancer Early Detection 4U01CA271888-04 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Hanks, Brent Allen

Univ Of North Carolina Chapel Hill
United States

Role of the tumor NLRP3 inflammasome in the generation of anti-PD-1 antibody immunotherapy-associated toxicities 7R01CA251136-05 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Hanks, Brent Allen

Univ Of North Carolina Chapel Hill
United States

Role of the tumor NLRP3 inflammasome in the generation of anti-PD-1 antibody immunotherapy-associated toxicities 7R01CA251136-05 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Hansen, Laura A

Creighton University
United States

Targeting aberrant anti-apoptotic signaling for prevention of skin cancer 5R01CA253573-05 Howard L. Parnes, M.D.
Harichand, Seema

Iowa Oncology Research Association
United States

Iowa-Wide Oncology Research Coalition (I-WORC) 3UG1CA189816-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Harichand, Seema

Iowa Oncology Research Association
United States

Iowa-Wide Oncology Research Coalition (I-WORC) 3UG1CA189816-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Harris, Holly Ruth

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
United States

Risk factors for and consequences of endometriosis among Black women 5R21HD115018-02 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Hartman, Terryl J.

Emory University
United States

Fiber-rich Foods to Treat Obesity and Prevent Colon Cancer 5R01CA245063-05 Nancy J. Emenaker, Ph.D., RDN, LD, FAND
Hawkins, Shannon Michelle

Indiana University Indianapolis
United States

Targeting cellular senescence to inhibit the development and progression of ovarian endometriomas 5R01HD109707-04 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Hayes, Richard Bernard

New York University School Of Medicine
United States

The Oral Microbiome and Upper Aerodigestive Squamous Cell Cancer 5R01CA159036-09 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Hebert, James R

University Of South Carolina At Columbia
United States

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Investigating Metabolic Dysregulation in Obese Parent and Child Dyads and Risk of Colorectal Cancer 3U01CA272977-03S1 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Hecht, Stephen S

University Of Minnesota
United States

High resolution mass spectrometric profile analysis of carcinogen-DNA adducts in oral cells of cigarette smokers and squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck 5R01CA263084-05 Wendy Wang, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Heine, John J

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Ctr & Res Inst
United States

Quantitative Imaging Clinical Validation Center at Moffitt Cancer Center 5U01CA200464-08 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Heine, John J

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Ctr & Res Inst
United States

Quantitative Imaging Clinical Validation Center at Moffitt Cancer Center 5U01CA200464-08 Guillermo Marquez, 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