Skip to main content
An official website of the United States government

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.

On This Page

  • All Heading 2s will automatically be pulled in to this list.
  • Do not edit the content on this template.

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

No matching Funding Opportunities were found.

View All Funding Opportunities

Grantee Details

PI Name Sort descending PI Organization Title Grant Number Program Official
Nelson, Randy J.

West Virginia University
United States

Mechanism Underlying Sleep Disruption by Mammary Tumors 5R21CA276027-02 Marjorie Perloff, M.D.
Neslund-Dudas, Christine Marie

Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences
United States

HFH-MSU CSRN ACCrual Enrollment and Screening Site 3UG1CA287007-02S1 Elyse LeeVan, M.D., M.P.H.
Nguyen, Sang Minh

Vanderbilt University Medical Center
United States

Gut Microbiome Profiles in Association with Breast Cancer Recurrence and Mortality 1R03CA292953-01 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Nicolson, Fay

Dana-Farber Cancer Inst
United States

SESORRS endoscopy for the staging and evaluation of colorectal cancer 5R00CA266921-04
NINA, BHARDWAJ,

ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI
United States

Immune determinants modulating cancer development in Lynch Syndrome 1UG3CA290517-01
Noble, Mark D

University Of Rochester
United States

Prevention and treatment of paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy 5R21CA277447-02 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Noble, Mark D

University Of Rochester
United States

Prevention and treatment of paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy 5R21CA277447-02 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Nolan, Michael Warren

North Carolina State University Raleigh
United States

Evaluation of TRPM8-expressing neurons as novel regulators of acute radiotherapy-associated pain in patients with head and neck cancer 5R37CA248797-05 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Nolan, Michael Warren

North Carolina State University Raleigh
United States

Evaluation of TRPM8-expressing neurons as novel regulators of acute radiotherapy-associated pain in patients with head and neck cancer 5R37CA248797-05 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Nyamathi, Adeline M

University Of California-Irvine
United States

Secondary Cervical Cancer Prevention of Vulnerable Women with HPV and HIV Co-infection in India 3R01CA285063-03S2 Vikrant Sahasrabuddhe, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.
Oberg, Ann Laura

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

Management and Data Coordination Unit for PCDC 5U24CA274496-04 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Ochoa, Augusto C.

Lsu Health Sciences Center
United States

Gulf South Clinical Trials Network (Gulf South NCORP) 3UG1CA189854-11S1 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Ochoa, Augusto C.

Lsu Health Sciences Center
United States

Gulf South Clinical Trials Network (Gulf South NCORP) 3UG1CA189854-11S1 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Olopade, Olufunmilayo F.

University Of Chicago
United States

The Funding Mechanism of the Pilot Trial 5R01CA276652-03 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Ondrey, Frank G.

University Of Minnesota
United States

Pioglitazone-Metformin Combination Treatment for High Risk Oral Preneoplasia 5R01CA254270-04 Malgorzata Wojtowicz, M.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