Arizona Cancer Center :: Science&Research:: GI Spore

The goal of the Arizona Cancer Center's Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) is to prevent and cure gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. The SPORE approaches this goal through studies in prevention, genetics, and therapeutics.

The esophagus, pancreas, and colon are some of the organs that make up the body's gastrointestinal tract. Cancers of these organs often carry a poor prognosis, and as a result, these cancers are responsible for more than 17 percent of cancer deaths in the United States. Laboratory and clinical research associated with the Arizona Cancer Center's GI SPORE focuses on addressing this poor survivability (which is linked to delayed detection of the cancers) and ultimately reducing the incidence and mortality of GI cancers.

In 1992, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) established the Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs) to promote cooperative research and to speed the information exchange between basic and clinical science. Through the SPORE program, laboratory and clinical scientists work together to plan, design and implement research programs that impact on cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and control. This cooperative exchange supports translational research. In other words, it helps to move basic research discoveries-new ideas that have the potential to reduce cancer incidence and mortality, improve survival, and to improve the quality of life-from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside. The SPORE program also includes a career development aspect that recruits scientists from within and outside the SPORE institution to enlarge the cadre of laboratory and clinical scientists dedicated to translational research on human cancer. Institutions united by the SPORE program meet annually to share data, assess research progress, identify new research opportunities and establish priorities for research most likely to reduce incidence and mortality and to increase survival.