Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach to research that involves shared, reflective, and systematic study in which researchers and community stakeholders engage as equal partners in all steps of the research process with the goals of educating, improving practice or bringing about social change.
The cancer center is an incubator for emerging research scientists and community partners interested in firsthand experience in conducting community-based participatory research.
Through our Interdisciplinary Cancer Prevention and Control training program, we support individuals getting their PhDs and encourage PhD graduates to pursue postdoctoral education. Similarly, our community partners, in collaboration with an academic researcher, drive studies that are initiated by, implemented in, and evaluated jointly with the community.
IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center is on the cutting edge of developing evidence-based interventions to help community members attain and maintain their health and well-being. These interventions are developed through a clinical trial process.
After the clinical trial, researchers and the community work together to evaluate the effects of the intervention on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes.
Research questions at the center of some of our active and recent clinical trials include:
It’s vital to make our research relevant to the communities we serve. We take our research findings from the laboratory, the clinic, or the field and transform them into new treatments and approaches to medical care that improves the health of the community.
The long-term goal of the Cancer Prevention & Control (CPC) research program is to reduce the incidence, morbidity, and mortality of cancer for the citizens of Indiana and beyond.
Recent publications and presentations:
The mission of the Experimental & Developmental Therapeutics (EDT) research program is to promote, develop, and exploit mechanism-based research for improved therapy of human cancer with a “bedside-to-bench-to-bedside approach.”
Recent publications and presentations:
The goal of the Hematopoiesis & Hematologic Malignancies (HHM) research program is to enhance treatment of hematologic malignancies—with a focus on leukemia, preleukemia, and multiple myeloma—through rigorous basic mechanistic scientific laboratory efforts, including in vitro cell culture and in vivo preclinical animal studies using mouse and human cells.
Recent publications and presentations:
The Tumor Microenvironment & Metastasis (TMM) research program supports three goals.
First, we advance the basic understanding of the role of cancer cell–stroma interactions in cancer initiation, progression and metastasis. Second, we study mechanisms of the systemic consequences of metastatic disease, particularly on muscle and bone dysfunction and metabolism. Third, TMM is a basic science research program whose discoveries lead to clinical trials conducted in collaboration with EDT and CPC.
Recent publications and presentations:
OCOE currently offers two award opportunities for supporting cancer-related research that hopefully will lead to the pursuit of larger grants and is intended to contribute to the reduction of the cancer burden in Indiana.
OCOE is interested in programs or community-led research that will increase our reach or understanding of the underserved populations in Indiana who bear a greater cancer burden. This project must be co-led by a community advocate or partner and current faculty affiliated with a college/university.
The OCOE invites proposals for pilot/feasibility research projects focused on how demographics, social determinants of health, comorbidities (obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc.), and behaviors (tobacco use, screening, preventive measures such as vaccination, diet and exercise) affect cancer risk, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship.
The principal investigator must be an associate or full member of the cancer center.
Email: ocoe@iu.edu
Phone: 317-278-4822
Interested in collaborating with the Office of Community Outreach & Engagement on cancer awareness and research advocacy in Indiana? Use our Partnership Interest Form to let us know how we can help.
Philanthropy is essential to IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center’s efforts to find solutions that save lives. Your gifts facilitate research that sets worldwide standards for care, improving outcomes for patients in Indiana and far beyond.
To help researchers improve outcomes for cancer patients, learn more about our giving options or contact our development team today.
