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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
Winger, Joseph Giles

Duke University
United States

Engage: A Randomized Controlled Trial Testing the Efficacy of a Telehealth-Delivered Psychosocial Intervention to Decrease Symptom Interference in Patients with Advanced Cancer 5R01CA291768-02 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Winger, Joseph Giles

Duke University
United States

Engage: A Randomized Controlled Trial Testing the Efficacy of a Telehealth-Delivered Psychosocial Intervention to Decrease Symptom Interference in Patients with Advanced Cancer 5R01CA291768-02 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Winger, Joseph Giles

Duke University
United States

Engage: A Randomized Controlled Trial Testing the Efficacy of a Telehealth-Delivered Psychosocial Intervention to Decrease Symptom Interference in Patients with Advanced Cancer 5R01CA291768-02 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Winters-Stone, Kerri M

Oregon Health & Science University
United States

Patterns and predictors of symptoms, falls, and functioning across treatment and recovery in patients treated with neurotoxic chemotherapy for cancer 5R01CA248059-05 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Winters-Stone, Kerri M

Oregon Health & Science University
United States

Patterns and predictors of symptoms, falls, and functioning across treatment and recovery in patients treated with neurotoxic chemotherapy for cancer 5R01CA248059-05 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Wolpin, Brian Matthew

Dana-Farber Cancer Inst
United States

Altered metabolism and machine learning for pancreatic cancer early detection 5U01CA210171-09 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Wong, David T

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

EFIRM Liquid Biopsy Research Laboratory: Early Lung Cancer Assessment 4U01CA233370-08 Nicholas Hodges, Ph.D.
Wright, Alexi A

Dana-Farber Cancer Inst
United States

Randomized trial of REVITALIZE: A telehealth intervention to reduce fatigue interference among adults with advanced ovarian cancer on PARP inhibitors 5R01CA289547-02 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Wright, Alexi A

Dana-Farber Cancer Inst
United States

Randomized trial of REVITALIZE: A telehealth intervention to reduce fatigue interference among adults with advanced ovarian cancer on PARP inhibitors 5R01CA289547-02 Goli Samimi, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Wu, Yun

State University Of New York At Buffalo
United States

Lung Cancer Early Detection and Immunotherapy Response Prediction and Monitoring with an Exo-PROS Liquid Biopsy Assay 4R01CA272827-04 Christos Patriotis, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Xiao, Yi

University Of Tx Md Anderson Can Ctr
United States

Exploring new strategy for breast cancer immunoprevention by targeting histamine receptor H1 5R21CA286318-02 Anda Vlad, M.D., Ph.D.
Xu, Chunhui

Emory University
United States

High-throughput assessment of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity in 3D human cardiomyocytes 1R21CA285254-01A1 Eileen Dimond, R.N., M.S.
Xu, Chunhui

Emory University
United States

High-throughput assessment of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity in 3D human cardiomyocytes 1R21CA285254-01A1 Eileen Dimond, R.N., M.S.
Xu, Xiangxi Mike

University Of Miami School Of Medicine
United States

Countering microtubule stabilization within hair follicles in ovarian cancer chemotherapy 5R01CA286527-02 Rachel Altshuler, Ph.D.
Xu, Xiangxi Mike

University Of Miami School Of Medicine
United States

Countering microtubule stabilization within hair follicles in ovarian cancer chemotherapy 5R01CA286527-02 Rachel Altshuler, 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