Mayo Clinic able to keep American Indian and Alaska Native Program

Mayo Clinic Receives $6 Million Grant to Expand Outreach to Native Americans

By Michelle Tirado · 12/06/2010 · No comments

Health · The Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has received a five-year, $6 million Community Networks Program Center grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to further develop its cancer health disparities outreach within American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities.

The funding will help the Mayo Clinic expand its Spirit of E.A.G.L.E.S. program, founded in 2000. One of 18 NCI-funded special population networks developed to support culturally appropriate cancer control activities, it created a national consortium of about 200 members, which includes AI/AN community representatives and students, cancer advocacy groups and academic cancer centers.

As the program expands, it will focus on comprehensive cancer control, including translational research, clinical trials and continued community-based participatory research.

Specifically, the NCI grant will allow the clinic to conduct research in Alaska and Wisconsin, as well as help formalize the Hampton Faculty Fellows Program to mentor the next generation of Native American cancer control researchers.

The Mayo Clinic’s Native American Programs director (and one of only two American Indian medical oncologists in the country), Judith Kaur, M.D., said in a press release, “This grant will enable us to build upon the important community outreach and research that we have been dedicated to over the past three decades.”