USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center

An NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center

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Fostering and Supporting Research

The USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center Office of Community Outreach and Engagement has been addressing the low engagement of African Americans and other minority groups in clinical trials and other cancer research. This effort includes partnering and promoting activities with our partners, networking, and hosting local, national, and international cancer organization representatives that visit our campus and hospitals. We have been developing and implementing an outreach plan with the Clinical Investigations Support office at USC Norris. We have provided guided lab tours led by students, patients, patient advocates; and introduced the community to world-renowned scientists, actively working on identifying new ways to better understand, treat, control, and prevent cancer with the goal of reducing the cancer burden in our catchment area of Los Angeles County (LAC).

NCI Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science (TCORS)​

The goals of this center is to:

      1. Evaluate marketing, social influence, and an individual’s personal social media networks on tobacco use and product choice, emphasizing vulnerable populations, with the ultimate aim of identifying ways to reverse or counteract these influences.
      2. Examine tobacco product distribution and regulation among local vendors, whose stores are a key point for purchase, contact with industry marketing and promotion, and regulatory education initiatives.
      3. Examine different topographies of tobacco use, integrating phenotypic variables with personal, social, cultural, and environmental variables to determine how future tobacco control initiatives may be tailored to different vulnerable groups.

To learn more about this center, go to: https://tcors.usc.edu

NCI Prostate Cancer RESPOND Study

Chris Haiman, PhD, leads the RESPOND study with David Conti, PhD, John Carpten, PhD, and Ann Hamilton, PhD. This new grant seeks to identify molecular factors influencing aggressive prostate cancer in over 3,000 African American men. To foster the success of this effort, the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement supports recruitment, retention, and community education, with a dedicated African American community health worker.

Cancer Research, Education and Engagement

Under the leadership of Drs. Mariana Stern and Hughes Halbert at USC, we have teamed up with the University of Florida, and the Florida A&M University, a historically Black college, to work together in research, education, and community outreach via the Florida-California Cancer Research, Education and Engagement Health Equity Center (CaRE2). This center addresses cancer disparities with a focus on prostate and pancreatic cancer among African Americans and Latinos, though not limited to those cancers. The program trains URM faculty (and graduate and post-doctoral trainees) to conduct research on cancer health disparities and community outreach and engagement. Numerous USC Norris members participate in teaching. This program (2018-2023) will support the training of seven post-baccalaureate students, 15 PhD students, 15 post-doctoral fellows, and 15 early stage investigators.

For more information, contact Anne Taguchi, Center Administrator
, at ataguchi@usc.edu.