NASHVILLE, Tenn. (October 28, 1999) - The National Cancer Institute has awarded more than $1 million to support a new partnership between Meharry Medical College and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

Through this partnership, Meharry and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center will collaborate on research and patient care initiatives that ultimately are hoped to help close the gap between blacks and whites in cancer incidence and deaths.

The work will be coordinated through an alliance, announced earlier this year, between Meharry and Vanderbilt Medical Center to enhance educational, scientific and clinical programs at and between both institutions.

"It is of great concern that, at the turn of the 21st Century, African-Americans remain more likely to develop cancer - and to die from it - than white Americans," said Dr. John E. Maupin, president of Meharry Medical College and member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Board of Overseers.

"The key is to better understand precisely why this disparity exists. We have ideas and can make intelligent guesses, but we need to do the rigorous scientific studies to answer those questions. Through this partnership, we will be better positioned to find those answers together than either institution could be alone."

Dr. Harry R. Jacobson, vice chancellor for Health Affairs at Vanderbilt Medical Center, noted that conducting endeavors such as this new partnership is precisely why the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance was formed. "I congratulate the hard work that has led to this collaboration and the quick results that the alliance has achieved," Jacobson said.

As a group, African-Americans face a disproportionate burden from cancer:

• African-American men have the highest incidence rates of prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and lung cancer compared to other ethnic groups.

• African-American men are more than twice as likely to die of prostate cancer than men of other ethnic gr
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