Admin Core

ADMINISTRATIVE CORE ABSTRACT The discovery-to-translation pipeline of the BU-UCLA Lung Cancer Biomarker Characterization Center is enabled by a multi-disciplinary team of investigators with diverse expertise. This Center is comprised of a Biomarker Development Laboratory and a Biomarker Reference Laboratory that each have three teams working on different approaches to the early detection of lung cancer utilizing biospecimens and clinical data being collected in several large clinical studies. These teams are distributed across multiple institutions including universities, academic medical centers, and two private companies. The operational complexity of the BU-UCLA Lung Cancer BCC will be effectively managed by the BCC’s Administrative Core. The Administrative Core will strengthen linkages within the Biomarker Discovery Lab and Biomarker Reference Lab components and help those investigators deliver on their respective milestones. It will further create strong linkages between the Biomarker Discovery Lab, the Biomarker Reference Lab, and the clinical studies via an Administrative Core- facilitated BU-UCLA BCC Steering Committee whose members will be the BCC Principal Investigators and co- Investigators. Sub committees of the Steering Committee will have responsibility for important center-wide activities such as biomarker qualification, review of clinical enrollment and clinical data, adjudication of diagnoses, selection of cases and controls, biospecimen QC, early-stage investigator training, and the dissemination of the Center’s work. The Administrative Core will also facilitate a BU-UCLA BCC Executive Committee made up of the MPI team that will provide oversight of the entire program and have final responsibility for Center decision-making as well as development and implementation of all policies, procedures, and processes. The Administrative Core’s Internal and External Advisory Boards will provide regular external evaluation of the BCC’s progress while also helping maintain the Center’s focus on addressing the most important clinical problems using the most innovative approaches. Finally, the Administrative Core will serve as the interface between the BCC, EDRN leadership and the NCI to ensure that the BCC conforms with the agreed practices and principles of the EDRN, ensure bidirectional exchange of findings and insights with other EDRN Centers, coordinate with other EDRN Centers to support validation of EDRN-developed biomarkers, and participate in collaborative projects.