With huge advances in personalized cancer therapy, clinicians at this program are looking beyond treating each organ or disease site to instead target each tumor’s genomic alterations irrespective of its location in the body. Patients who have advanced cancer with various tumor types are evaluated and considered for a clinical trial or personalized treatment for their cancer.
What is Developmental Therapeutics?
Developmental Therapeutics is particularly focused on early phase clinical studies that aim to discover important therapeutic breakthroughs. These studies are resource intensive and require a specialized dedicated team. Many of the novel approaches we offer are focused on precision medicine – a “matching” of a specific therapy with biologic features of a patient’s cancer. We also are very broadly studying approaches that utilize the patient’s own immune system as an anti-cancer approach.
Cancer subtypes that we evaluate here include patients with:
- Carcinoma
- These cancers start in skin or tissues that cover your internal organs
- Sarcoma
- This cancer starts in your muscle, fat, bones, cartilage, blood vessels, connective tissue or supportive tissue
- Leukemia
- Starts in blood-forming organs like bone marrow. Often a large number of abnormal blood cells are made and travel into your bloodstream
- Lymphoma and Multiple Myeloma
- Starts in cells within your immune system
Our Mission
Our Mission: Uniting scientists, clinicians and educators in the fight against cancer.
Our team is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art clinical care, along with the resources and support that patients and their families need. This requires the services and expertise of a multidisciplinary team of experts in hematology and oncology. Additionally, we offer the supportive care of a Social Worker, Nutritionist and Palliative Care Specialist on-site to address any and all needs our patients may encounter throughout their treatment process.
The mission of Developmental Therapeutics includes:
- Bring innovative breakthrough discoveries from the laboratory to our patients as quickly and as safely as possible
- Endeavor to find a cure for cancer and other life-threatening disorders that share targets with cancer
- Provide the highest level of clinical care to patients fighting cancer and other diseases
- Unite the talent and resources of academic and medical staffs within a comprehensive program dedicated to patient care and researching life-threatening disorders
- Unite the talent and resources of academic and medical staffs within a comprehensive program dedicated to patient care and researching life-threatening disorders
- Conduct early phase clinical studies and become an entry portal for pre-clinical drug development
- Train hematology-oncology researchers and clinicians to meet the highest standards of drug therapeutics development
Visit cancer.northwestern.edu/clinical-trials to learn more and search a continually updated list of clinical trials.
Multidisciplinary team and research
Developmental Therapeutics combines the leadership and contributions of specialists from related, yet diverse disciplines to infuse new knowledge and perspectives to advance our basic, clinical, and translational science efforts.
Our research scientists, translational researchers, and clinical investigators are actively engaged in both basic and clinical research and have particular expertise in developmental therapeutics and drug development.
By working closely with Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists, physicians are able to design clinical trials that may be more effective for our patients. For example, by observing the cancer tissue after treatment, doctors can determine how efficiently a drug was delivered and how well it is working. Ultimately, this will enable us to treat each tumor, and each patient even more individually.
DT uses an interdisciplinary approach that holds promise for something greater than the sum of individual faculty efforts. Our teams of faculty clinicians and scientists are focused on developing effective new cancer treatments and enhancing our patients' quality of life.
Patients at DT receive care from a multidisciplinary team of specialists who meet weekly, sharing their knowledge and experience to develop the best possible treatment plan. Our accomplished clinicians and scientists work together to identify approaches that will result in new and diverse methodologies to the prevention, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of human cancers.
DT encourages and facilitates collaborations between Cancer Centers, other academic institutions, as well as with device, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies.
Treatment is only one aspect of each patient's care; the team works closely with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center Supportive Oncology team to ensure that patients and family members receive the emotional, physical and practical support they need.
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