Cancer Control Program

The Cancer Genetics Network (CGN)

Principal Investigator: Claudine Isaacs, MD
Project Manager: Grace Zawistowski, BA

In 1998 the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) selected Georgetown University as one of eight sites across the United States to form the Cancer Genetics Network (CGN). The purpose of the CGN is to help scientists and health care providers understand the causes of cancer, and to help them to detect, prevent, and treat cancer. To do this, the CGN sites established a central registry, or list, of individuals with a personal or family history of cancer, who are interested in participating in future cancer genetics research studies. Cancer researchers often have found it difficult to recruit the number of participants required for their studies. The CGN was designed to address this need, as well as to make data gathering quicker and more efficient, by providing researchers all over the country with a comprehensive pool of voluntary participants drawn from the CGN registry.