Practical Research for Innovative Cancer Control Management Office
Kazuhiko Aoyagi, Yoshinori Makino, Yoshifumi Hashimoto, Satoru Sekiya, Hiromi Oda, Kyoko Minamoto, Sachie Ishibashi, Yoko Saito, Shizuka Yamazaki, Hiromi Nakagawa, Takashi Saito
Introduction
The principal mission of the Practical Research for Innovative Cancer Control Management Office (PRIMO) is to support the program supervisor (PS) and the program officer (PO) of the "Practical Research for Innovative Cancer Control" (Project) under the supervision of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) Division of Cancer Research, Department of Research Promotion. In October 2017, PRIMO was added to the NCC organization as a new office directly reporting to the President and independent of the other sections in the NCC.
What We Did
1. PRIMO supports progress management of each research and development carried out in the Project using the research progress management system developed by PRIMO. This year, PRIMO has developed and provided additional functions that use issue-specific keywords to grasp the overall picture and status of the Project.
2. The list of the milestones for clinical research has been formulated for pediatric and AYA (adolescents and young adults) cancers with special emphases on the critical steps prior to the start of the actual trial.
3. PRIMO has continued developing and providing a "think tank" function using international research output and funding databases, data mining techniques and research information mapping systems. Global trends of cancer research will be captured and analyzed in various fields of cancer research including clinical trials. Matching researchers, seeds, materials and methods will be facilitated using the AI-enabled research information mapping system. This year, an on-demand support to use the investigator mapping system has been started for individual Principal Investigators (PI).
4. The intellectual property consultation for PIs of the Project has been continued to promote translation of the research results to cancer clinics through development of innovative diagnostics and therapeutics.
5. PRIMO has also kept providing research ethics consultation for PIs in the Project.
6. Consultation for fundamental research and R&D strategy has been offered for drug and medical equipment for cancer patients.
7. PRIMO has distributed information on cancer research related to the Project via the PRIMO portal site.
Future Prospects
PRIMO will continue to support PS, PO and PIs mainly in the progress management of each research and development task in the Project. A milestone table created for clinical trials can be adapted to the entire clinical research agenda in the Project. PRIMO will discuss with PS/PO and AMED to introduce a matching scheme to facilitate collaboration among the PIs of this project and research institutions that can provide advanced technology and bioresources. Implementation of the data mining support developed in this project could expand to basic research as well as drug discovery research. The portal site will also be updated as needed. It is expected to be an AMED model for the whole cancer research and beyond in the future.