Siteman Cancer Center (SCC) leads all cancer research at Washington University School of Medicine, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and BJC HealthCare. SCC’s mission is to prevent cancer in the community and transform cancer patient care through scientific discovery. This mission is accomplished through exceptional research, with emphasis on SCC’s four key strengths and scientific pillars: genomics and its application to clinical care; innovation in imaging technologies and their application to cancer diagnosis and patient care; immunology and the enhancement of patient care with unique immune therapies; and prevention to reduce the cancer burden in the patient population we serve.

SCC members/researchers have successfully conducted paradigm-shifting research to further understand the mechanisms of cancer pathways, speed the conduit from bench to bedside, and implement prevention strategies that impact cancer screening, incidence, and mortality in our catchment area.  This progress is attributable to SCC’s seven research programs, 11 shared resources, education and training, pilot funding programs, and community outreach. Research Programs promote novel, multidisciplinary cancer research and encourage intra, inter, and cross-institution collaboration. SCC shared resources provide high quality imaging, genomics, proteomics, immunomonitoring, flow cytometry, informatics, and biostatistics services to SCC members at subsidized rates to facilitate cutting edge science.

SCC’s NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center status recognizes SCC’s commitment, discovery, and innovation across the translational continuum; specifically, in three major areas.

• Basic Laboratory Research:  Basic Laboratory Research generates fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems.  Through basic science, researchers are able to answer questions about how life works; for example, how cells talk to each other, what controls gene activity, and how diseases develop.  This knowledge serves as the foundation for biomedical advances and leads to better ways to predict, prevent, diagnose, and treat disease.
• Preclinical and Clinical (Translational) Research:  Preclinical research is intended to further understand the basis of a disease or disorder and find ways to treat it. Testing is carried out using cell or animal models of disease; samples of human or animal tissues; or computer-assisted simulations of drug, device or diagnostic interactions within living systems.  Clinical Research aims to better understand a disease, new technology, treatment, intervention, behavior, and/or outcomes.
• Prevention, control, population-based science (including public health research):  Includes researchers studying health outcomes at the population level to determine the effects of diseases and efforts to prevent, diagnose, and treat them.  Findings help guide scientists working to assess the effects of current interventions and to develop new ones.