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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
Mclouth, Laurie

University Of Kentucky
United States

Pathways, a Hope-Based Intervention to Support Personal Goal Pursuit, Mental Health, and Quality of Life during Advanced Lung Cancer Treatment 5R01CA283929-03 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Mclouth, Laurie

University Of Kentucky
United States

Pathways, a Hope-Based Intervention to Support Personal Goal Pursuit, Mental Health, and Quality of Life during Advanced Lung Cancer Treatment 5R01CA283929-03 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Md, Nicholas Dibella

Western States Cancer Research Ncorp
United States

NCORP: Colorado Cancer Research Program 3UG1CA189805-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Md, Nicholas Dibella

Western States Cancer Research Ncorp
United States

NCORP: Colorado Cancer Research Program 3UG1CA189805-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Meghani, Salimah H.

University Of Pennsylvania
United States

Cannabis use and outcomes in ambulatory patients with cancer: A 12-month cohort study 3R01CA270483-04S1 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Meghani, Salimah H.

University Of Pennsylvania
United States

Cannabis use and outcomes in ambulatory patients with cancer: A 12-month cohort study 3R01CA270483-04S1 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Meghani, Salimah H.

University Of Pennsylvania
United States

Cannabis use and outcomes in ambulatory patients with cancer: A 12-month cohort study 3R01CA270483-04S1 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Mehrara, Babak J

Sloan-Kettering Inst Can Research
United States

Mechanisms of racial disparity in breast cancer-related lymphedema 5R01CA278599-03
Mehrara, Babak J

Sloan-Kettering Inst Can Research
United States

Mechanisms of racial disparity in breast cancer-related lymphedema 5R01CA278599-03
Mehta, Anand S.

Medical University Of South Carolina
United States

Glycan Biomarkers for Cholangiocarcinoma 1R01CA289381-01A1 Sidney Fu, M.D.
Melemedjian, Ohannes Kevork

University Of Maryland Baltimore
United States

Identification of novel targets for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced painful peripheral neuropathy 4R01CA249939-02 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Melemedjian, Ohannes Kevork

University Of Maryland Baltimore
United States

Identification of novel targets for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced painful peripheral neuropathy 4R01CA249939-02 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Mello-Thoms, Claudia R

University Of Iowa
United States

Satisfaction of Search in Breast Cancer Detection 5R01CA259048-05
Metzger, Gregory John

University Of Minnesota
United States

Computer Aided Diagnostic System for Prostate Cancer Detection Using Quantitative Multiparametric MRI 4R01CA241159-05 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Milanovich, Samuel J.

Sanford Research/Usd
United States

Sanford Community Cancer Program of the North Central Plains (NCORP) 3UG1CA189825-11S1 Vanessa A. White, 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