A collaborative effort to eliminate cancer health disparities among African Americans and other underserved populations in the Washington, D.C., area is being reignited at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and the Howard University Cancer Center.

The Howard-Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Alliance in Cancer Research, Education and Equity (H2CAREE) builds on collaborations between the institutions. From 1999 to 2013, funding from the National Cancer Institute allowed the two institutions to work together on an initiative that helped increase enrollment of people from underrepresented groups in clinical trials. The funding also led to more than 260 scientific publications and trained dozens of young investigators. The National Cancer Institute will provide $13.5 million over five years through the U54  Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity (PACHE) program.

“We are excited to expand the centers’ long-standing collaboration to improve cancer care and health equity by leveraging our complementary strengths and resources,” says the project’s co-principal investigator Heng Li, Ph.D., chief proton physicist and associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences at Johns Hopkins.

Li says state-of-the-art cancer care, such as radiotherapy and genetically targeted therapies, are often not readily accessible for many underserved populations, contributing to poorer outcomes. The H2CAREE team will build the infrastructure needed to conduct rigorous and collaborative transdisciplinary research, expand the research education capacity to strengthen the diversity of the cancer research workforce and improve care in the community through outreach programs.

Collaborative research projects co-led by investigators from both institutions are launched through the program. For example, a project led by Tamara Lotan M.D., professor of pathology and deputy director for research affairs in the Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology, and Tamaro Syton Hudson, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Howard University, will try to identify molecular epigenetic drivers of aggressive prostate cancer among African American men. Another project will develop nanoparticles that can help more precisely target radiation therapy for patients with pancreatic cancer and enhance the effects of immunotherapy.

The partnership will also tap into the strengths of the communities it serves and build off of long-standing relationships between the community and the institutions, says the project’s co-principal investigator Clayton Yates, Ph.D., the inaugural John R. Lewis Professor and chair of pathology, oncology and urology at Johns Hopkins. The project’s community engagement piece will be co-led by Roland Thorpe Jr., Ph.D., director of the Program for Research on Men’s Health at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, and Carla Williams, Ph.D., interim director of the Howard University Cancer Center and associate professor of medicine and public health at the university. Both are minority investigators who have long worked in the community and built strong relationships and trust.

“It’s important to understand the communities’ needs, be sensitive and ultimately supply what the community is asking for, not what we think their needs are,” Yates explains.

H2CAREE will also recruit and train people from diverse backgrounds, particularly from underrepresented groups. Building on current offerings, such as the medical physics program at Howard University — the only such program at a historically black college or university in the U.S. — and the Summer Academic Research Experience at The Johns Hopkins University, the extensive research education program will provide opportunities for high school students and graduate students, including medical students. These young investigators will benefit from faculty mentorship at both institutions.

“We’re dedicated to training the next generation of scientists and making sure that equity starts with training providers and making them culturally competent and sensitive scientists,” Yates says. “The lasting impact of this collaboration will be our imprint in the community and the people we’re going to train at Howard and Johns Hopkins.”