Natural Products for Cancer Prevention and Interception: Preclinical and Clinical Studies and Funding Opportunities

TL;DR

This paper reviews natural products for cancer prevention, focusing on human studies and funding opportunities to advance research.

Contribution

The paper highlights the NCI's funding initiatives to encourage natural product research in cancer prevention.

Findings

Preclinical findings for natural products often lack confirmation in human studies.

Few combination intervention studies have been conducted, prompting broader preclinical reviews.

The NCI's DCP is offering funding to promote natural product research in cancer prevention.

Abstract

Multiple agents derived from natural products (NPs) have been evaluated for cancer prevention and interception, either alone or in combination. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is very interested in advancing research to identify additional agents that, alone or in combination, may prove useful in cancer prevention. Below, we provide an overview of NP studies in cancer prevention and interception, both individual agents and combination interventions. Given that findings from many preclinical studies evaluating individual agents have generally not been confirmed in human studies, our focus with individual NPs in this review is on studies involving humans, especially clinical trials. Fewer combination intervention studies have been conducted, so we have broadened our review to include preclinical studies. We conclude with how the Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP) within the NCI is providing funding to encourage the research community to propose natural product studies in cancer prevention and interception to advance the field.

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