Consortium to include University of Washington, Swedish and Virginia Mason medical centers, Pacific Northwest Research Institute and VA Puget Sound Health Care System

Media briefing: Researchers will be available to discuss these findings at 10:30 a.m. today at the Center's Metropolitan Park East campus, 1730 Minor Ave. (between Olive and Howell). A media relations representative will greet you in the main lobby at 10:15 a.m. and escort you to the briefing room. Complimentary visitor parking is available in an underground garage (entrance off Minor).

The National Institutes of Health has selected the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle to lead a five-year, $11.5 million investigation into the causes, prevention, early detection and treatment of ovarian cancer. The Pacific Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium, funded by the National Cancer Institute, will involve researchers from the University of Washington, Swedish Medical Center, the Pacific Northwest Research Institute, the VA Puget Sound Health Care System (Seattle Division) and Virginia Mason Medical Center. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Screening Program in Los Angeles also will participate.

At least 3,500 women throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho are expected to participate in the Consortium's various studies. Funded as a Specialized Program of Research Excellence, or SPORE, in Ovarian Cancer, the initiative will be led by principal investigator Nicole Urban, Sc.D., a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and an associate professor of health services in the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine.

Co-principal investigators are immunologist Mary (Nora) Disis, M.D., an associate professor of medicine/oncology at UW; and molecular-medicine researcher Steven Collins, M.D., a
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Contact: Kristen Woodward
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
206-667-5095
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
4-Oct-1999