The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) is a United States

federally funded research and development center Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) are public-private partnerships that conduct research and development for the United States Government. Under Federal Acquisition Regulationbr>§ 35.017 FFRDCs are operated by uni ...

(FFRDC) supported by the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. T ...

and managed by the private contractor Leidos Biomedical Research. The institution was originally established under the name Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center in 1972 as a component of President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

War on Cancer The "war on cancer" is the effort to find a cure for cancer by increased research to improve the understanding of cancer biology and the development of more effective cancer treatments, such as targeted drug therapies. The aim of such efforts is ...

initiative. In 2012, the institution received a national laboratory designation and assumed its current name, becoming the only U.S. national laboratory exclusively dedicated to

biomedical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from " basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scienti ...

. The campus in

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in and the county seat of Frederick County, Maryland. It is part of the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. Frederick has long been an important crossroads, located at the intersection of a major north–south Native ...

, also houses National Cancer Institute laboratories and administrative organizations, and is colloquially referred to as NCI-Frederick.

History

As part of the 1971

initiative,

requested that the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

transfer land and buildings which were then part of

Fort Detrick Fort Detrick () is a United States Army Futures Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center of the U.S. biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969. Since the discontinuation of that program, i ...

to the

Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

in order to support the research efforts of the

. The new laboratory was established in 1972 under the name "Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center" and received a designation as a

Federally Funded Research and Development Center Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) are public-private partnerships that conduct research and development for the United States Government. Under Federal Acquisition Regulationbr>§ 35.017 FFRDCs are operated by uni ...

in 1975. This organizational model, also used by

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

and

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

among others, specifies a type of public-private partnership composed of an institution that is owned by the federal government but operated by a private contractor. The laboratory was administratively reorganized in 1981, resulting in changing the name to "Frederick Cancer Research Center". In 2012, it was formally designated "Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research", becoming the first U.S. national laboratory owned by the Department of Health and Human Services and the only one exclusively dedicated to

. (HHS has since also established the CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare in cooperation with the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...

.) The transition to redesignate FNLCR as a national laboratory was spearheaded by then-NCI director

Harold Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He was ...

Current operations

FNLCR currently operates a number of research programs and facilities designed to support

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...

research goals. FNLCR contains two

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...

manufacturing facilities to support

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, diet ...

s run by the

and the

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's ...

; manages a large collection of research samples, biological specimens, and

mouse model A model organism (often shortened to model) is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the model organism will provide insight into the working ...

s used in cancer research; and hosts specific research projects such as the RAS Initiative, aimed at studying the biology of common

oncogene An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.

s in the

Ras subfamily Ras, from "Rat sarcoma virus", is a family of related proteins that are expressed in all animal cell lineages and organs. All Ras protein family members belong to a class of protein called small GTPase, and are involved in transmitting signals ...

, and the

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal ...

Characterization Laboratory. Since 1995, the contractor operating the facility has been Leidos Biomedical Research (formerly SAIC-Frederick). That contract was renewed for ten years in 2008. In 2015 the NCI began seeking applications for a new contract expected to be awarded in January 2017; however, this search was suspended in September 2016.

NCI-Frederick

In addition to the FNLCR, the Frederick biomedical research campus also houses NCI facilities such as research laboratories, administrative organizations, and the separate NCI Center for Cancer Research. The facilities are collectively known as NCI-Frederick but are administratively distinct.

References

External links

*
NCI
account on USAspending.gov {{Coord, 39.438761, -77.362607, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-MD, display=title National Institutes of Health Federally Funded Research and Development Centers Laboratories in the United States