NCI Resources for Cancer Immunoprevention Research.

Cancer prevention and early detection, the first two of the eight primary goals of the National Cancer Plan released in April 2023, are at the forefront of the nation's strategic efforts to reduce cancer incidence and mortality. The Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the federal government's principal component devoted to promoting and supporting innovative cancer prevention research. Recent advances in tumor immunology, cancer immunotherapy, and vaccinology strongly suggest that the host immune system can be effectively harnessed to elicit protective immunity against the development of cancer i.e., cancer immunoprevention. Cancer immunoprevention may be most effective if the intervention is given before or early in the carcinogenic process while the immune system remains relatively uncompromised. DCP has increased the emphasis on immunoprevention research in recent years and continues to expand program resources and inter-agency collaborations designed to facilitate research in the immunoprevention field. These resources support a wide array of basic, translational, and clinical research activities, including discovery, development, and validation of biomarkers for cancer risk assessment and early detection (EDRN), elucidation of biological and pathophysiological mechanistic determinants of precancer growth and its control (TBEL), spatiotemporal multiomics characterization of precancerous lesions (HTAN/PCA), discovery of immunoprevention pathways and immune targets (CIP-Net), and preclinical and clinical development of novel agents for immunoprevention and interception (CAP-IT, PREVENT, and CP-CTNet).