DCTD Workshop: Translating Emerging Cancer Diagnostics and Technologies toward Clinical Impact
Workshop Recordings Are Available
Overview
The NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) held a two-day virtual workshop focused on accelerating the translation of emerging cancer diagnostics and enabling technologies into measurable clinical impact. The workshop convened experts and stakeholders from across DCTD programs and the NCI Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, along with senior investigators, early-stage investigators, and industry leaders, in a solution-oriented forum designed to bridge scientific innovation and real-world clinical implementation.
Objectives
To accelerate translation from discovery to clinical adoption by:
- showcasing next-generation biomarker and enabling technology platforms
- strengthening cross-sector collaboration across academia, industry, and government\
- engaging and supporting both senior investigators and early-stage investigators through focused discussion, visibility, and mentorship
- outlining NCI-supported funding, partnership, and commercialization pathways that advance measurable clinical impact.
Highlights
Day 1 spotlighted foundational innovation in biomarker science, and Day 2 focused on industry perspectives, funding pathways, and awardee case studies to align projects with available NCI funding mechanisms.
- Cancer biology, bioengineering, imaging, computational science, and clinical research are increasingly converging to create new approaches for cancer detection, treatment assessment, and disease monitoring.
- Emerging technologies are moving beyond measurement alone to interrogate biological activity, treatment response, and tumor evolution. Examples included synthetic biomarkers, implantable microdevices, engineered therapeutic platforms, functional assays, and multimodal technologies.
- A central theme was that technology development should begin with a clearly defined clinical need and decision point. The goal is to generate reliable, actionable information rather than simply increase data complexity.
- Successful translation requires more than technical performance. Technologies must advance through appropriate validation, demonstrate clinical relevance, and be designed for reproducibility, scalability, workflow integration, and real-world implementation.
- Cross-sector collaboration among academic investigators, clinicians, industry, regulators, and funding organizations is critical to move promising cancer technologies from innovation toward meaningful clinical impact.
More information, including the agenda and speaker bios, is available on the NCI Events site.