The sobering facts about cancer incidence and mortality are only part of an evolving story. Advances in our understanding of cancer have provided new therapies that stave off disease, or improve quality of life. Promising new discoveries provide new reasons for hope.

Here at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, we bring together scientists and clinicians from many disciplines to collaborate on virtually every aspect of cancer, from understanding the basic biology, to identifying risk factors and the best ways to control the disease, or prevent it all together. Armed with new insights into the molecular basis of cancer, UCSF scientists are pursuing some of the most innovative and exciting research happening today. Advances from this work could lead to earlier detection, improved drug therapies, and, ultimately, to a dramatic increase in survival rates and quality of life.

Laboratory-based research by our investigators extends across the university's five principal campuses and beyond, yet the work of these bench scientists is closely allied with that of physicians on the front lines of patient care. This synergy and collaboration is what is meant by "translational research": While basic scientists investigate cancer's most fundamental causes, clinical researchers explore ways this knowledge can be applied, giving patients access to the latest experimental protocols.

Here on this website we offer detailed information about such clinical trials, which span nearly all types of cancer. Here you will also find summaries of our programmatic research initiatives; biographical background on our faculty investigators; links to cancer information resources; access to our clinical services; and suggestions for how to support our work.

Whether you are a patient, advocate, health care provider, researcher, or concerned layperson, thank you for your interest in the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Frank McCormick, PhD, FRS
Director, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
UCSF Cancer Research Institute