About the Cancer Center

The Cancer Center at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine (TTUHSC SOM) was established in 2008 to provide a center of excellence for cancer research for the School of Medicine and the entire South Plains region.

A major focus of the TTUHSC SOM Cancer Center is conducting laboratory and clinical research that develops new anti-cancer drugs for both adults and children with difficult-to-treat cancers. The Cancer Center hosts the Operations Center for a clinical consortium, the South Plains Oncology Consortium that conducts early phase clinical trials in adults and children with cancer. The Cancer Center also hosts the Operations Center and laboratories for the Texas Cancer Cell Repository, a Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT)-funded collaboration between a number of institutions to establish, bank, and distribute cancer cells from patients that have been established to grow in the laboratory or in special mice for use in studying the cancer biologies and novel therapies. Through these consortia TTUHSC works closely with other institutions in Texas and beyond to carry out clinical and translational laboratory research in cancer drug development.

The TTUHSC SOM Cancer Center also hosts national resource laboratories that support clinical and translational research for childhood cancer:

• Childhood Cancer Repository powered by Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, a Children’s Oncology Group Resource Laboratory.
• Neuroblastoma Pharmacology Resource Laboratory for the Children's Oncology Group and
• the New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy consortium.