About the Consortium

The Fred Hutchinson/University of Washington Cancer Consortium is a research collaboration comprising Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center since 1976, and its strong collaborators, the University of Washington, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Fred Hutchinson's designation by the National Cancer Institute as a comprehensive cancer center was expanded to include the Consortium in 2003. See profiles of participating institutions.

While the participating institutions remain independent, the Consortium combines their strengths to accelerate research progress in the fight against cancer and develop premier research programs across many types of cancer.

The Consortium brings together over 400 faculty with research interests in basic, clinical, and public health sciences related to cancer, with total NCI funding of $116 million in 2008. Highlights from the Consortium's second year are summarized in the 2007 Consortium Progress Report (December 2007).

• Faculty in the Consortium are organized into 13 productive research programs with emphasis in:
  
• Public health (Biostatistics, Cancer Prevention, Epidemiology)
  
• Clinical research (Clinical Transplantation, Transplantation Biology)
  
• Fundamental sciences (Basic Sciences, Genome Instability, Stem/Progenitor Cell Biology)
• Programs that impact all three disciplines (Cancer Imaging; GI Cancer Etiology, Risk, & Detection; Immunology and Vaccine Development; Prostate Cancer; Women’s Cancer).

In addition, the Consortium has developing programs in Computational Biology, Molecular Diagnostics, Pediatric Oncology, and Viral Pathogenesis. There are also three affinity groups in neuro-oncology, thoracic/head & neck, and behavioral & outcomes research.

During its first five years, the Consortium has sought to develop additional strength in the following areas:

1. Build greater strength in clinical solid tumor research
2. Strengthen our molecular approaches to population based science
3. Strengthen information technology and quantitative sciences
4. Encourage interdisciplinary and inter-institutional communication
5. Develop greater capability in biomarker discovery with emphasis on early disease detection
6. Develop a Phase I drug development program with capabilities that will complement our focus on molecular biomarkers and our strength in imaging