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Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center
At a Glance

Research at Lombardi

Today, Lombardi receives more than $100 million in research grants, there are nearly 200 full-time faculty members and 220 ongoing clinical trials. There are six established research programs at Lombardi:

• The Breast Cancer Program consists of faculty members working exclusively on finding a cure for breast cancer. The program is aligned with the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research, which was established in 1989 to be the focal point of Lombardi’s breast cancer activity. Founded by fashion designer Ralph Lauren and the late Washington Post Company president Katharine Graham, the center honors their friend Nina Hyde, fashion editor of The Washington Post from 1972 until her death of breast cancer in 1990. The Nina Hyde Center continues to be one of the foremost breast cancer research programs in the world and promotes crucial research seeking better methods of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of breast cancer.

• The Cancer Control Program conducts research across the range of the cancer control process from risk factors and prevention, through early detection, to treatment and survivorship. Lombardi’s program is unique in its inclusion of populations across the lifespan - from childhood to older age - and translation from the cellular to the societal policy level. The overall goal of the program is to develop, evaluate and disseminate innovative cancer control interventions designed to reduce the incidence, morbidity and mortality from cancer among high-risk populations. 

• The Cancer Genetics and Epidemiology Program’s mission is to understand the body’s response to carcinogenesis including risk, early stage cancers, progression, and prognosis. The program focuses its research primarily on the genetic and environmental factors which affect the development and progression of cancer, identifying markers for risk and methods for prevention.

• The Growth Regulation of Cancer Program aims to understand the fundamental aspects of the regulation the cell life cycle and how this impacts the cancer process. With a long history of outstanding research accomplishments in the hormone-dependent malignancies, breast and prostate cancer, the program’s major focus is on the biology of steroid hormone and nuclear receptors.

• The Molecular Targets and Developmental Therapeutics Program is a comprehensive translational research program with the major mission of new drug and target discovery for cancer. The program is organized as a drug development "pipeline" with expertise in drug and target discovery, the performance of innovative early Phase clinical research, and disease-specific Phase II and III clinical research.

• The Radiation Biology and DNA Repair Program studies radiation as both a cause and treatment for cancer. Current research aims to identify what causes normal cells to become sensitive to radiation (and initiating the malignant transformation), and how tumors can be sensitized to radiation in order to more effectively treat cancers.