E-News Newsletter - October 2020
About the Alliance


Who We Are - Defining, Understanding All Four Distinct
Alliance Entities

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology is a multi-institutional cancer research consortium that conducts high-impact multidisciplinary cancer control, prevention, and treatment trials. The Alliance was formed in 2011 by the merger of three National Cancer Institute (NCI) funded cooperative groups: the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG), the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), and the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG). Through these legacy groups, the Alliance brings a 63-year history of cancer clinical trials experience to meet the research challenges of 2020.

The mission of the Alliance is to reduce the impact of cancer by:

  • conducting high-quality multidisciplinary cancer control, prevention, and treatment trials that engage a comprehensive research network;
  • furthering our understanding of the biological basis of the cancer process and its treatment, from discovery, to validation, to clinical practice; and
  • providing a scientific and operational infrastructure for innovative clinical and translational research in the academic and community settings.

The Alliance is comprised of an outstanding scientific team, where its studies are designed by disease, discipline, and modality committees populated by U.S. leaders in clinical oncology, cancer control and prevention, and translational research. Central to this work, a network of member clinical sites are distributed throughout North America, with almost equal representation by community oncology and academic institutions. The activities of these researchers are coordinated by an infrastructure that provides central administration, protocol operations, statistics and data management, translational research expertise, and biorepository resources. In order to achieve its mission, the Alliance is supported by two distinct operations teams. The first, dating to 1956, manages Alliance participation in the U.S. National Cancer Institute-sponsored National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) and NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP). Through this mechanism, the Alliance joins the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, NRG Oncology, the SWOG Cancer Research Network, the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), and the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) to conduct a comprehensive portfolio of research funded through the NCI. In addition, Alliance Foundation Trials, LLC (AFT), a not-for-profit corporation, allows Alliance researchers and institutions to lead and participate in cancer clinical trials supported by organizations independent of the NCI.

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation (FDN) is a nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation that raises funds to help the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology answer important treatment questions through large-scale clinical trials. Through efforts of the Foundation in support of Alliance clinical trials and laboratory research, donors can help find new ways to prevent, treat and cure many types of cancer, and help educate the medical community on methods of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

Some recent initiatives supported by the Foundation include new chemotherapy treatments for breast, prostate, lung, leukemia, multiple myeloma, renal cell cancer, and colorectal cancer; new surgical techniques for breast and colon cancer; genetic studies of breast cancer risk; molecular determinants of response to therapy for breast, colorectal and lung cancers, and leukemia; and research that improves the quality of life for cancer patients and their caregivers. For more information about the Foundation or to donate, visit the Support Research page on the Alliance website.

The Alliance NCTN Foundation (ANF) provides critical scientific and operational infrastructure for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (Alliance) National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) and Alliance National Cancer Institute (NCI) Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) Research Base, and affiliated organizations for the implementation of innovative clinical translational research in academic and community settings focused on reducing the impact of cancer by engaging a comprehensive research network and conducting high-quality multidisciplinary cancer control, prevention and treatment trials, the results of which will be available to the public, and furthering the understanding of the biological basis for cancer and its treatment from discovery, to ANF is the sole member of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation.

Alliance Foundation Trials, LLC (AFT) is a research organization that develops and conducts cancer clinical trials, working closely with the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology scientific investigators and institutional member network, research collaborators, and non-NCI funding sources. AFT seeks to fulfill the vision of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology to reduce the impact of cancer on people by uniting a broad community of scientists and clinicians from many disciplines committed to discovering, validating, and disseminating effective strategies for the prevention and treatment of cancer. Current AFT studies are funded by a number of pharmaceutical company collaborators and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). For more information about developing an AFT study, contact the AFT Project Manager at Info@AllianceFoundationTrials.org or visit www.AllianceFoundationTrials.org.

The Alliance Data Innovation Lab, LLC (DL) focuses its efforts and resources to expand the validation and use of cancer data standards and technologies to assess data within the electronic health records used in clinical trials. DL provides the operational infrastructure to accomplish these efforts in direct collaboration with nationally recognized cancer centers and trials run by the Alliance and AFT. The goal is to increase efficiencies and quality of data, reduce administrative burden, and expedite the submission of clinical trials data to the FDA and other key regulatory agencies.

 

 

For other articles in this issue of Alliance E-News, see below.