Pharmacy Practice Division faculty Jill Kolesar, professor (CHS) and Director, 3P Analytical Instrumentation Laboratory, UW Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC), was recently appointed co-leader of the Cancer Therapy Discovery and Development (CTD2) disease oriented working group.

The CTD2 is part of the Experimental Therapeutics (XT) Scientific Program whose mission is to discover new targets and therapeutic agents, translate and advance these discoveries through clinical trials and use information and resources from these clinical trials to understand mechanisms of response and resistance that will inform XT members of potentially superior therapeutic approaches.

Currently there are nearly 20 Disease Oriented Working Groups (DOWGs) and Clinical Research Groups (CRG) that support the UWCCC philosophy of a multidisciplinary team approach for cancer patients. The translation of laboratory discovery to clinical application is facilitated by the working groups as they are embedded in specific UWCCC Scientific Programs and provide a multidisciplinary translational infrastructure which fosters inter- and intra-programmatic interactions that address programmatic goals and also disease specific interests. Each DOWG/CRG has a designated leader and participants include UWCCC Scientific Program members, research staff and other UW faculty. Kolesar’s appointment is noteworthy as historically only MDs serve as leaders of the clinical working groups.

The DOWGs/CRGs meet regularly and interested laboratory research faculty are encouraged to actively participate. In this manner, the multidisciplinary patient care activities and their associated clinical trials research are integrated into the Scientific Programs in several meaningful and functional ways through UWCCC faculty participation and UWCCC administrative support.

The DOWGs/CRGs review and prioritize their respective clinical research activity and provide ongoing planning for new investigator-initiated studies. Proposed studies must have the support of the DOWG/CRG prior to submission to the Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (PRMC).