Why Being an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center Matters
VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, the highest recognition a cancer center can receive from the NCI. We are one of 58 centers in the country to achieve this distinction, and one of only two in Virginia. This designation reflects the expertise of our scientific leadership, the innovative research we conduct, the compassion at the core of our community engagement efforts and the scope of our cancer research training and education programs.
Since our initial recognition as an NCI-designated center in 1975, we have expanded our scientific expertise and emerged as a leader in community-first approaches to research, collaboration and trust-building, leading to our achievement of Comprehensive status in 2023.
Learn more about Massey's history
A Community-Centric Approach
By acknowledging the community as an equal expert and strategic research partner, we can better refine scientific questions and research priorities. Explore the ways we’re working with different groups across the catchment area.
Frequently Asked Questions
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the federal government’s principal agency for cancer research and training. Through its Cancer Centers Program, NCI nationally recognizes centers that meet rigorous standards for transdisciplinary, state-of-the-art research focused on developing new and better approaches to understanding and treating cancer.
Massey is proud to have been awarded Comprehensive status in 2023. As a Comprehensive Cancer Center, we have demonstrated:
- Significant depth and breadth of research across scientific domains
- Transdisciplinary research that bridges basic, population and clinical sciences to translate discoveries into new cancer treatments and prevention approaches
- Success in meeting the needs of our surrounding communities (what’s known as our catchment area) through collaborative cancer research and community engagement
- Training and education of biomedical researchers and community health care advocates
- Strong institutional support to promote cancer center growth and sustainability
As an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, the care we deliver is informed by the latest scientific research. What we discover in the laboratory is translated to the care we provide to our patients in our treatment rooms, and most importantly, into the community.
We are helping develop new standards of care–such as tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy for advanced melanoma–not just for other cancer centers but for community providers and health care systems alike. As a high-volume cancer center, it also means that our clinicians have experience dealing with complex and rare cancers.
We offer clinical trials that are only available at NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, and all of our clinical trials are intentionally designed to meet the distinct needs of our community, giving patients access to the latest cancer therapies available.
Our researchers and trainees are guided by highly qualified leadership and have access to cutting-edge scientific resources to help advance discovery. In addition, NCI designation makes us eligible for additional federal research funding and resources reserved for the most elite institutions that demonstrate superior research capabilities. Part of that funding is reserved to give staff investigators and early-stage clinical investigators protected time for research development.
Our Comprehensive status also opens the door for us to collaborate with other NCI-designated Cancer Centers on research studies, scientific data sharing and multidisciplinary training opportunities. For example, Massey is a partner in the Virginia Cancer Screening Research Network, a network of academic health systems, medical schools and primary care practices working together to study new cancer screening technologies like cancer-detecting blood tests.
We are proud to be leading the way for a new generation of cancer centers — one that integrates community input into everything we do in order to close health care gaps. Our research efforts are specifically designed to answer scientific questions that are important to, and that meet the needs of, our communities in Virginia. Together, we are co-creating solutions to help reduce the cancer burden for all.
As a Comprehensive Cancer Center, we are also committed to educating community members on the importance of a healthy lifestyle and early cancer detection, with particular emphasis on reaching populations statistically more at risk for cancer. Whether in the clinic, or in the community through our mobile vans, Massey is committed to meeting individuals where they are.
Our designation also incentivizes pharmaceutical and biomedical research companies to establish a research hub near Massey, inviting new opportunities to shift laboratory research to our treatment rooms and bolstering educational and economic development in Virginia.
Learn more about community outreach and engagement activities from Massey