Research and Innovation
Thanks to advances during the last 20 years, many children are cured of their cancer during childhood. Still, survival is not consistent across all childhood cancers and current therapies are horrendously toxic. Simply put, the required drugs and approaches to successfully meet the needs of children with cancer remain frustratingly out of reach.
Nationwide Children's Hematology/Oncology/BMT is committed to advancing both basic and clinical research. The division maintains active membership in the Children’s Oncology Group and the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium, and is a research member of the International Blood and Marrow Transplant Registry. The division is also involved in other clinical research efforts aimed at improving bone marrow transplant outcomes. Hematology, Oncology & BMT works hand-in-hand with the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases to expand the understanding of childhood cancer and to improve strategies for its diagnosis and treatment. Get the latest Hematology/Oncology and Blood and Marrow research and innovation.
Clinical Studies
Approximately 74 percent of eligible oncology patients are enrolled in clinical trials at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, making the division one of the leading cancer centers for clinical trial enrollment by the Children’s Oncology Group.
National Biobanking Leadership
A comprehensive cancer biobanking has existed at Nationwide Children’s since the late 1980s. Currently, the Biopathology Center is one of the largest cancer biobanks in North America and includes the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) biobank. The Biopathology Center receives more than $15 million annually from the National Institutes of Health to support these efforts. Specimens are received from more than 500 hospitals in the United States and Canada, as well as New Zealand, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and Switzerland. This lab receives, processes, characterizes and stores approximately 100 new cancer cases each day.
The longstanding biobanking expertise at Nationwide Children’s resulted in our designation as a Biospecimen Core Resource for The Cancer Genome Atlas Project, the largest research project ever undertaken by the National Institutes of Health.
Preclinical Testing Program
The Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program (PPTP) is a multi-center initiative supported by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and led by Center for Childhood Cancer Director, Dr. Peter Houghton. Through the PPTP, scientists systematically evaluate new against 47 mouse models of eight tumor types. The primary goal is to identify new agents that have the potential for being clinically effective.