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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
Hutson, Alan David

Roswell Park Cancer Institute Corp
United States

Cancer Immunoprevention Network (CIP-Net) Resource Coordinating Center 1U24CA305623-01 Altaf Mohammed, Ph.D.
Huttenhower, Curtis

Broad Institute, Inc.
United States

PROSPECT: Pathways, Risk factors, and mOleculeS to Prevent Early-onset Colorectal Tumors 3OT2CA297578-01S1 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Ibsen, Stuart Duncan

Oregon Health & Science University
United States

Distinguishing Pancreatic Cancer from Benign Pancreatic Disease using Nanoparticle-based Biomarkers 5R37CA258787-04 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Im, Eun-Ok

University Of Texas At Austin
United States

Cancer Pain Management: A Technology-Based Intervention for Asian American Breast Cancer Survivors 5R33CA280979-04 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Im, Eun-Ok

University Of Texas At Austin
United States

Cancer Pain Management: A Technology-Based Intervention for Asian American Breast Cancer Survivors 5R33CA280979-04 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Infante, Rodney E

Ut Southwestern Medical Center
United States

Identifying the Cellular and Molecular Targets of JAK/STAT-Driven Adipose Wasting to Reverse Cancer Cachexia 3R01CA266900-04S1 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Infante, Rodney E

Ut Southwestern Medical Center
United States

Identifying the Cellular and Molecular Targets of JAK/STAT-Driven Adipose Wasting to Reverse Cancer Cachexia 3R01CA266900-04S1 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Infante, Rodney E

Ut Southwestern Medical Center
United States

Identifying the Cellular and Molecular Targets of JAK/STAT-Driven Adipose Wasting to Reverse Cancer Cachexia 3R01CA266900-04S1 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Irvin, William J

Southeast Clinical Oncol Res Consortium
United States

NCI Community Oncology Research Program 2025 Extension Request 3UG1CA189858-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Irvin, William J

Southeast Clinical Oncol Res Consortium
United States

NCI Community Oncology Research Program 2025 Extension Request 3UG1CA189858-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Iwelunmor, Juliet

Washington University
United States

Innovative Rapid Enabling, Affordable, point-of-Care HPV Self-Testing Strategy (I-REACH) 3U01CA279863-04S1 Vikrant Sahasrabuddhe, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.
Iyer, Prasad G.

Mayo Clinic Arizona
United States

Minimally Invasive Molecular Approaches for the Detection of Barrett’s Esophagus and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma 2R01CA241164-07 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Jacob, Jennifer B

Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences
United States

Defining Cancer Intervention Targets by Functional Genomics Analysis of Outbred F1 Mice 5R01CA278818-03
James, Aimee S

Washington University
United States

Administrative Supplement to Building equity in cancer screening through research: The Siteman Catchment CSRN Hub 3UG1CA286946-02S1 Elyse LeeVan, M.D., M.P.H.
Jang, Mi-Hyeon

Rutgers Biomedical And Health Sciences
United States

Identification of novel biomarkers and therapeutic strategies in chemobrain. 5R01CA293210-02 John Clifford, 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