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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

No matching Funding Opportunities were found.

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Grantee Details

PI Name Sort descending PI Organization Title Grant Number Program Official
Rogers, Laura Q

University Of Alabama At Birmingham
United States

Role of gut microbe composition in psychosocial symptom response to exercise training in breast cancer survivors 5R01CA235598-06 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Rogers, Laura Q

University Of Alabama At Birmingham
United States

Role of gut microbe composition in psychosocial symptom response to exercise training in breast cancer survivors 5R01CA235598-06 Gabriela Riscuta, M.D., CNS
Rosenberg, Daniel William

University Of Connecticut Sch Of Med/Dnt
United States

Microbiota, Metabolites, and Colon Neoplasia 5R01CA252045-05 Amit Kumar, Ph.D.
Rosenbluth, Jennifer M.

University Of California, San Francisco
United States

In vitro models as a window to learn how to change outcomes in women at high risk of developing breast cancer 4R01CA281361-04 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Ross, Stephen

New York University School Of Medicine
United States

Psilocybin Therapy for Advanced Cancer-related Psychiatric Distress 5R01CA268521-04 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Ross, Stephen

New York University School Of Medicine
United States

Psilocybin Therapy for Advanced Cancer-related Psychiatric Distress 5R01CA268521-04 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Rosser, Charles J

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
United States

A Multiplex Protein Biomarker-Based Immunoassay for the Early Detection of Bladder Cancer and its Implications in Tumor Biology 5R01CA277810-03 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Rotemberg, Veronica Miriam

Sloan-Kettering Inst Can Research
United States

M-ISIC: A Multimodal Open-Source International Skin Imaging Collaboration Informatics Platform for Automated Skin Cancer Detection 5U24CA264369-04 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Roth, Michael E.

Public Health Institute
United States

Children's Oncology Group NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) Research Base grant 3UG1CA189955-11S3 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Roth, Michael E.

Public Health Institute
United States

Children's Oncology Group NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) Research Base grant 3UG1CA189955-11S3 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Rowland, Kendrith Martin

Carle Foundation
United States

Carle Cancer Center NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) 3UG1CA189861-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Rowland, Kendrith Martin

Carle Foundation
United States

Carle Cancer Center NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) 3UG1CA189861-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Russell, John A

University Of Wisconsin-Madison
United States

Treatment of Functional Deficits IN tongue muscles induced by radiation and chemoradiation treatment 5R37CA225608-07 Cecilia Lee, Dr.P.H., RN
Russell, John A

University Of Wisconsin-Madison
United States

Treatment of Functional Deficits IN tongue muscles induced by radiation and chemoradiation treatment 5R37CA225608-07 Cecilia Lee, Dr.P.H., RN
Saenger, Yvonne Margaret

Albert Einstein College Of Medicine
United States

Applying pathomics to establish a biosignature for aggressive skin melanoma 5R01CA260375-05 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