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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
Chak, Amitabh

Case Western Reserve University
United States

Pathways of Injury and Repair in Barrett's Carcinogenesis 5P01CA269019-03 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Chan, Daniel Wanyui

Johns Hopkins University
United States

BCC for Prostate Cancer: Discovery and Translation of Biomarkers for Clinical Unmet Needs 5U2CCA271895-03 Indu Kohaar, Ph.D., M.Phil., M.Sc.
Chan, Andrew T

Massachusetts General Hospital
United States

MGH- PROSPECT: Pathways, Risk factors, and mOleculeS to Prevent Early-onset Colorectal Tumors 3OT2CA297680-01S1 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Chan, Alexandre

University Of California-Irvine
United States

Neurotrophic strategy to mitigate chemotherapy-related brain injury 5R01CA276212-03 John Clifford, Ph.D.
Chan, Alexandre

University Of California-Irvine
United States

Neurotrophic strategy to mitigate chemotherapy-related brain injury 5R01CA276212-03 John Clifford, Ph.D.
Chan, Daniel Wanyui

Johns Hopkins University
United States

Development of a panel of multiplex biomarkers for the early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and high-risk lesions 5U01CA274514-03 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Chan, Andrew T

Massachusetts General Hospital
United States

Precision Prevention Research Program 5R35CA253185-06 Asad Umar, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Chapkin, Robert Stephen

Texas A&M Agrilife Research
United States

Targeting plasma membrane spatial dynamics to suppress aberrant Wnt signaling 5R01CA244359-05 Amit Kumar, Ph.D.
Chen, Ru

Baylor College Of Medicine
United States

BLOOD-BASED PROTEOMIC ASSAY FOR PANCREATIC CANCER DETECTION 4UH3CA292130-02 Claire Zhu, Ph.D.
Chen, Grace Y.

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor
United States

Targeting cancer stem-like cells and inflammation for colon cancer chemoprevention 5R21CA273646-02
Cheville, Andrea Lynne

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

Achieving Safe, Comprehensive, Digitally-Enabled Cancer Pain managemeNT” (ASCENT) Clinical Trial 5R33CA278594-04 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Cheville, Andrea Lynne

Mayo Clinic Rochester
United States

Achieving Safe, Comprehensive, Digitally-Enabled Cancer Pain managemeNT” (ASCENT) Clinical Trial 5R33CA278594-04 Brennan Streck, Ph.D., RN, M.P.H.
Chiang, Cheng-Ming

Ut Southwestern Medical Center
United States

Small Compound Inhibitors Targeting HPV Genome Replication 1R01CA288743-01A1
Chibwesha, Carla J

Univ Of North Carolina Chapel Hill
United States

Acceptability and feasibility of combination treatment for cervical precancer among South Africa women living with HIV 5R01CA250850-05 Vikrant Sahasrabuddhe, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.
Chinnaiyan, Arul M

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor
United States

Michigan-VUMC Biomarker Characterization Center 5U2CCA271854-04 Indu Kohaar, Ph.D., M.Phil., M.Sc.

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