Richard C.K. Jordan, DDS, PhD, FRCPath, is the contact principal investigator and recipient of a $12 million, five-year National Cancer Institute award to fund the NRG Oncology Biospecimen Bank. Dr. Jordan is a Professor of Oral Pathology, Pathology & Radiation Oncology, and Director of Oral Pathology, UCSF Dermatopathology & Oral Pathology Service. Since 2012 he has been Director of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group Biospecimen Resource.
NRG Oncology is North America’s largest cooperative cancer group formed from the merger of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG), the Gynecology Oncology Group (GOG) and the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP). Each year NRG Oncology enrolls 6,099 patients with the most common and devastating human cancers (CNS, lung, breast, head and neck, endocrine, GYN, GU and GI tract) on phase 2 and 3 practice-changing clinical cancer trials.
NRG Oncology and its three legacy groups have been responsible for several important advances, including showing enhanced survival for patients with head and neck and lung cancer using cetuximab, the impact of HPV on survival in oropharyngeal cancer, the first North American multi-center study to test stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in non-small cell lung cancer, the effectiveness of adding temozolamide in gliomas, the value of tamoxifen in patients with in situ breast cancer and the importance of trastuzumab (Herceptin) added to standard combination chemotherapy for breast cancer.
The NRG Oncology Biospecimen Bank supports these late stage cancer trials by annually collecting, storing, reviewing and distributing 140,000 annotated biospecimens (paraffin blocks, frozen tissues, blood, serum, plasma, urine, CSF, saliva, bronchial lavages and fine-needle aspirations) and their derivatives, such as DNA, RNA and protein, and bioinformatics data obtained from patients enrolled in NRG Oncology phase 2 and phase 3 cancer trials. The NRG Biospecimen Bank is based in three cities nationwide and is led by medical directors Richard Jordan DDS, PhD in San Francisco, Nilsa Ramirez MD in Columbus, Ohio and Soon Paik, MD in Pittsburgh.
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Dr. Richard Jordan
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