The Partnership between Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), Tuskegee University (TU), and the O' Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is supported by the NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI). The Partnership, located in the heart of the Southeast, a region with a large, historically underserved African American population, has goals of attaining excellence in research focused on the basis of cancer health disparities and on reducing the cancer burden. The three institutions, which are assisting underserved communities, possess unique strengths that supplement each other. The primary objectives are to maintain progress in establishing productive cancer research programs at MSM and TU, to persist in developing a pipeline of prospective minority investigators at TU and further expand cancer disparity research at O' Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB.

The Partnership has three Cores (Administrative, Planning & Evaluation, and Developmental). Within the Developmental Core, there are four Programs (Cancer Research, Training, Outreach and Education) and two Shared Resources (Bioethics and Biostatistics). With the Research Programs, the Partnership will continue: 1) to tap the pool of talented students and faculty at MSM and TU through the Cancer Training Program, linking them to established investigators and to the research infrastructure at the O' Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center; 2) to promote a Cancer Research Program, which provides funding for research projects; 3) to encourage graduate and undergraduate students across various scientific disciplines to pursue careers in the biosciences through our Cancer Education Program and to provide a flow of students into our Cancer Training and Cancer Research Programs; and 4) to promote cancer awareness and healthy lifestyles among our underserved populations and increase minority participation in therapeutic clinical trials through our established Cancer Outreach Program. The Bioethics Shared Resource promotes and ensures adherence to bioethical principles and addresses ethical considerations in relationships among our institutions and between institutions and communities. The Biostatistics Shared Resource maintains statistical support for all programs. The Partnership will continue to demonstrate its extensive capability to conduct research on cancer health disparities.

The overall progress report of the partnership is shown below.