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
Schoen, Robert E.

University Of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
United States

Blood-Based Testing for Advanced Adenoma 5U01CA271884-04 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Schroeck, Florian R

Veterans Education/Res/Assn/North/Ne
United States

Replacing Invasive Cystoscopy with Urine Testing for Non-muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Surveillance 5R37CA275916-03 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Schuetze, Scott Michael

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor
United States

Early Phase Clinical Cancer Prevention Consortium 2UG1CA242632-06 Donald Johnsey
Sears, Rosalie C

Oregon Health & Science University
United States

An atlas of pancreatic tumorigenesis in the context of altered DNA repair occurring in high-risk individuals 4U01CA294548-02 Indu Kohaar, Ph.D., M.Phil., M.Sc.
Sears, Rosalie C

Oregon Health & Science University
United States

Validation of novel imaging and molecular tests for early detection of pancreatic cancer through risk-stratified community engagement programs 5U01CA278923-03 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Sedrak, Mina S

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

Using Senolytics to Improve Physical Function in Older Breast Cancer Survivors 5R21CA277660-03 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Sedrak, Mina S

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

Targeting Senescence to Mitigate Chemotherapy-induced Functional Decline 5R01CA280088-03 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Sedrak, Mina S

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

Targeting Senescence to Mitigate Chemotherapy-induced Functional Decline 5R01CA280088-03 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Sedrak, Mina S

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

Using Senolytics to Improve Physical Function in Older Breast Cancer Survivors 5R21CA277660-03 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Segal, Leopoldo Nicolas

New York University School Of Medicine
United States

Microbial and host biomarker development for detection and prognosis of early stage non-small cell lung cancer 5U2CCA271890-03 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Segata, Nicola

University Of Trento
United States

PROSPECT - Microbiome Studies. (PATHWAYS, RISK FACTORS, AND MOLECULES TO PREVENT EARLY-ONSET COLORECTAL TUMOURS) 1OT2CA297205-01 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Seguin-Fowler, Rebecca Anne

Texas A&M Agrilife Research
United States

Deep in the Heart for Women: A Community-Engaged Intervention Study to Catalyze a Culture of Health in Rural South Texas 1R01HL179449-01 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Semmes, Oliver John

Old Dominion University
United States

Virginia-UCLA-Toronto Biomarker Characterization Center 5U2CCA271894-05 Indu Kohaar, Ph.D., M.Phil., M.Sc.
Sempere, Lorenzo

Michigan State University
United States

Image-Guided Intraductal Ablative Procedure for Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer 5R01CA258314-04 Edward Sauter, M.D., Ph.D.
Sen, Subrata

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Circulating Biomarkers and Imaging for Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancer 5U01CA214263-07 Matthew Young, 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