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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
Reb, Anne

Beckman Research Institute/City Of Hope
United States

A Blended e-Health Intervention for Fear of Progression in Advanced GYN Cancer 1R21CA293326-01 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Reb, Anne

Beckman Research Institute/City Of Hope
United States

A Blended e-Health Intervention for Fear of Progression in Advanced GYN Cancer 1R21CA293326-01 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Reese, Jennifer Barsky

Research Inst Of Fox Chase Can Ctr
United States

Promoting Effective Clinical Communication about Sexual Health after Gynecologic Cancer: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Patient-Focused Intervention 5R01CA285674-02 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Remick, Scot C

Mainehealth
United States

MaineHealth Cancer Care Network (MHCCN) and NCORP Activities across the Lifespan 3UG1CA239771-06S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Remick, Scot C

Mainehealth
United States

MaineHealth Cancer Care Network (MHCCN) and NCORP Activities across the Lifespan 3UG1CA239771-06S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Reuland, Daniel S.

Univ Of North Carolina Chapel Hill
United States

Administrative Supplement: CSRN Vanguard Study 3UG1CA286949-02S1 Elyse LeeVan, M.D., M.P.H.
Richards-Kortum, Rebecca R.

Rice University
United States

Low-cost mobile colposcopy and confocal imaging for global prevention of cervical cancer 5R01CA251911-05 Vikrant Sahasrabuddhe, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.
Richards-Kortum, Rebecca R.

Rice University
United States

Sample-to-answer HPV DNA nucleic acid test for cervical cancer screening in Mozambique 3U01CA292741-02S1 Vikrant Sahasrabuddhe, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.
Rini, Christine

Northwestern University At Chicago
United States

Web-based Pain Coping Skills Training to Improve Pain and Poor Adherence caused by Aromatase Inhibitor-Associated Arthralgia In Breast Cancer Survivors (SKIP-Arthralgia): A Randomized Controlled Trial 5R01CA271220-04 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Rini, Christine

Northwestern University At Chicago
United States

Web-based Pain Coping Skills Training to Improve Pain and Poor Adherence caused by Aromatase Inhibitor-Associated Arthralgia In Breast Cancer Survivors (SKIP-Arthralgia): A Randomized Controlled Trial 5R01CA271220-04 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Rini, Christine

Northwestern University At Chicago
United States

Mosaic: RCT of a Digital Health Intervention Delivering Peer Support Narratives and Psychoeducation to English- and Spanish-Speaking Stem Cell Transplant Recipients 5R01CA292116-02 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Rini, Christine

Northwestern University At Chicago
United States

Mosaic: RCT of a Digital Health Intervention Delivering Peer Support Narratives and Psychoeducation to English- and Spanish-Speaking Stem Cell Transplant Recipients 5R01CA292116-02 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Robbins, Hilary A.

International Agency For Res On Cancer
United States

The Lung EArly Proteins project: A LEAP toward implementing biomarkers in lung cancer screening 4R01CA262164-04 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Robertson, Gavin P.

Pennsylvania State Univ Hershey Med Ctr
United States

Targeting Aldehyde Dehydrogenase for Cancer Prevention 5R01CA241148-05
Robertson, Sarah E

Dartmouth College
United States

Learning about the effectiveness of lung cancer screening in real-world target populations 4R00CA287059-03 Neeraj Saxena, 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