University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center

 

Creation and testing of novel screening, prevention, treatment and survivorship procedures that hold promise.

 

This is one of only two National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in Illinois. Care is provided using a multidisciplinary model. Technologies and treatments are almost uniformly the latest and the best. Research is a key facet of the center. The institution approaches research from the proposition that cancer is not a single disease, but a biological process of many manifestations and impacts. The center studies cancer at both the molecular level, to evaluate how minute variations in genes can trigger processes that initiate abnormal cell growth, and at the systemic level, to increase understanding of where the opportunities for unraveling the complexities of cancer are to be found. The center works with primary care physicians in the community to teach them state-of-the-art diagnostics so that cancers can be detected much earlier.