The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center

- Leadership Overview
- Director's Message
  Read a message from Joann Sweasy, PhD, director of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.
- About the Center
  Learn about the mission and vision of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.
- Outreach Overview
- Mission
  The Community Outreach and Engagement Office aims to reduce overall cancer burden and eliminate cancer-related health disparities in its catchment area.
- Community Advisory Board
  This board advises on the direction of cancer center research, dissemination of evidence from ongoing research activities, and policy recommendations.
- Speaker's Bureau
  The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center Speakers Bureau provides resources to community groups across Nebraska including experts to give presentations on cancer-related topics.
- Resources
  The Community Outreach and Engagement Office provides such resources as videos, infographics, reports and community needs assessments.
- Our Team
  Find members of the Community Outreach and Engagement Office team.
- Nebraska Breast Health Navigation Program
  This program is working to eliminate barriers for breast cancer survivors, using trained volunteers called Lay Patient Navigators who provide peer-to-peer support.
- Research Overview
- - Membership Directory
    Search a listing of full members of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, as well as directories of members by research program.
  - Membership Criteria
    Learn about the criteria for becoming a member of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.
  - Become a Member
    Apply for membership in the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center by submitting a short form.
- - Shared Resources
    The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center is home to state-of-the-art facilities and provides support to shared resources at UNMC.
  - UNMC Cores and Shared Resources
    Researchers also have access to shared resources through the UNMC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.
  - Request Research Space
    Complete this form to request research space.
- - Cancer Biology Program
    The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center Cancer Biology Program represents a long-standing commitment to cancer mechanisms-focused research.
  - Gastrointestinal Cancer Program
    This program is focused on understanding the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of gastrointestinal cancers; identifying diagnostic and prognostic tools; and d developing new therapeutic options.
  - Targets, Modulators and Delivery Program
    This program develops and delivers small molecules to modulate validated cancer targets as eventual cancer therapeutics.
  - Lymphoma Study Group
    The Nebraska Lymphoma Study Group is a groundbreaking collaboration among community oncologists, pathologists and researchers within the UNMC Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology.
- - Registries
    View registries that are currently enrolling subjects through iCaRe2.
  - Information for Patients
    Participation helps researchers understand specific cancer types, determine risk factors, advance treatment for patients and discover cancer prognostic markers.
  - Information for Researchers
    iCaRe2 aims to foster clinical and epidemiological studies and accelerate the secondary use of cancer and health related data for translational research.
  - Information for Sponsors
    Your gift will support the continuous system growth and improve strides in personalized medicine, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer.
Patient Care
Training & Education

— The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center — Research — Integrated Cancer Repository for Cancer Research — About iCaRe2

About iCaRe2

The iCaRe2’s objective is to enable:

comprehensive studies of risk factors of cancer development and progression;
novel strategies for prevention, screening, early detection and personalized treatment of cancer.

The iCaRe2 has standardized and integrated multi-center cancer-specific registries and associated biospecimen banks, created and maintained by the Biomedical Informatics Core at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, into a resource that improves the efficiency of cancer-related research and facilitates collaborations among centers. Each registry utilizes a well-established model for collaborative research based on the confederation principle and governed by a steering committee according to the agreed-upon bylaws.

As of October 2023, data on more than 36,000 subjects (cancer patients, high-risk individuals, and normal controls) have been collected in the iCaRe2 registries. These registries are utilized at 65 institutions (107 distinct sites) from 23 U.S. states and one center in Italy.

The iCaRe2 utilizes a novel metadata-driven software architecture approach that greatly simplifies support, maintenance, and future upgrades of the collaborative cancer registries and improves the interoperability with other related systems.

The iCaRe2 manages:

the needs of end-users for easy-to-use, customizable and effortlessly maintainable data collection systems;
federal regulations for protection of patient information;
requirements of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for systems interoperability, standardization and data sharing.

Researchers are not limited to collecting data from a small pool of subjects based on region or an institution. The iCaRe2 broadens researcher samplings and allows scientists from all over the world to access data from a much larger collection base. Ultimately, this information will be improving patient care and the development of cancer treatments.