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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
Staff, Nathan P

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

Investigating the role of MAP2 in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neurotoxicity 5R01CA275870-03 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Staff, Nathan P

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

Investigating the role of MAP2 in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neurotoxicity 5R01CA275870-03 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Stolley, Melinda R

Medical College Of Wisconsin
United States

Every Day Counts: A lifestyle program for women metastatic breast cancer 5R01CA258759-04 Nancy J. Emenaker, Ph.D., RDN, LD, FAND
Storz, Peter

Mayo Clinic Jacksonville
United States

Deiminated molecules as markers for developing pancreatic cancer - A1 5R21CA279916-02 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Suga, Jennifer Marie

Kaiser Foundation Research Institute
United States

Kaiser Permanente NCI National Community Oncology Research Program, NCORP 3UG1CA189821-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Suga, Jennifer Marie

Kaiser Foundation Research Institute
United States

Kaiser Permanente NCI National Community Oncology Research Program, NCORP 3UG1CA189821-11S1 Vanessa A. White, M.P.H.
Sukumar, Saraswati

Johns Hopkins University
United States

Development of an automated, point of care DNA methylation cartridge blood test for colorectal cancer detection in LMICs- an academic-industrial partnership 3R01CA278816-03S1 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Sun, Ju

University Of Minnesota
United States

SCH: A New Computational Framework for Learning from Imbalanced Biomedical Data 4R01CA287413-03 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Suter, Melissa J

Massachusetts General Hospital
United States

Early Detection and Diagnosis of Lung Cancer with Endomicroscopy 5R01CA255326-04 Guillermo Marquez, Ph.D.
Svatek, Robert Scott

University Of Texas Hlth Science Center
United States

eRapa for bladder cancer prevention 5R01CA252057-05 Howard L. Parnes, M.D.
Tabung, Fred Kinyuy

Ohio State University
United States

Role of the inflammatory dietary pattern in gut and colon tissue microbiomes and impact on survival outcomes among colorectal cancer patients 1R21CA294050-01 Amit Kumar, Ph.D.
Tamkus, Deimante

Cook County Health And Hospital System
United States

Stroger Hospital of Cook County (SHCC) MU-NCORP 3UG1CA190000-12S1 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Tamkus, Deimante

Cook County Health And Hospital System
United States

Stroger Hospital of Cook County (SHCC) MU-NCORP 3UG1CA190000-12S1 Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Tanasova, Marina

Michigan Technological University
United States

Molecular probes for targeting facilitative fructose transporters (GLUTs) in biochemical and biomedical applications 2R15CA242401-02A1 Wendy Wang, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Taouli, Bachir

Icahn School Of Medicine At Mount Sinai
United States

Abbreviated MRI for HCC screening in cirrhotic patients 5R01CA249765-05 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