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The Cigarette Restitution Fund Program -- a long-term commitment to fighting cancer -- will provide additional strength to important research initiatives underway at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center (UMGCC). The Cancer Research Grant commitment is for $9.5 million each year for the next decade and will benefit the health of Maryland residents and others through a variety of research initiatives.
A high priority is "translational research," which means taking advances from the laboratory and applying them to help cancer patients at the bedside. This initiative will enable people with cancer to take part in clinical trials of promising new therapies close to home, rather than traveling out of state to have access to the latest treatments.
The Cigarette Restitution Fund Program also will enable UMGCC specialists to develop and offer innovative approaches to patient care. Those include using new types of technology to deliver cancer-fighting drugs or radiation directly to tumors. These types of focused treatments can target the disease more precisely and, at the same time, reduce the chance of side effects. With more clinical trials and innovative treatment methods, UMGCC will provide new reasons for hope to people who thought they had exhausted all of their options.
The cancer center will focus its research funding from the Cigarette Restitution Fund Program on earlier diagnosis and better treatment for several of the most common types of cancer to affect Maryland residents. These include breast and prostate cancers, as well as those of the gastrointestinal tract and oral, head and neck cancers. A genomics laboratory, which finds and analyzes specific genes involved in cancer, and a proteomics laboratory, to discover the proteins associated with particular forms of cancer, are examples of the important research programs underway. Such initiatives will not only provide more understanding of cancer, they will also point the way to new treatments.
Through Cigarette Restitution Fund Program, UMGCC is able to attract some of the nation's top scientists and cancer specialists to join its impressive array of experts. Patients at the cancer center benefit from the expertise of teams of specialists who bring together a wide range of experience and treatment approaches to provide comprehensive care. These teams include a medical oncologist, a surgical oncologist, and a radiation oncologist -- all of whom specialize in researching and treating a particular form of cancer.
In summary, the Cigarette Restitution Fund Program enables UMGCC to invest in people, technology and facilities to generate research breakthroughs that will improve the diagnosis, treatment and survival of people faced with cancer in the years to come. As advances are made, these investments are expected to generate additional financial support through public and private research programs.
