The Keystone Programs for Collaborative Discovery

“As a major contributor to the world cancer community, Fox Chase Cancer Center has arrived at a time when we can match our historic strengths to the challenges of our time as never before possible. With our organizational flexibility and remarkable intellectual capital, we have the opportunity to make a distinctive contribution to world medicine.

"With the Keystone Programs for Collaborative Discovery, we will advance the best approach for transforming the best ideas into the best practice, for the benefit of all.”

Cancer medicine has entered a new age. Extraordinary advances in our knowledge of human biology are coinciding with a new ability to translate scientific discoveries into prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of disease. The potential to transform hopes into life-saving practice has never been greater.

With the ongoing explosion in scientific knowledge, the challenge of the 21st century is to find the best way for talented teams of scientists and physicians to work together to most fully exploit the fruits of this new era. How can we best accelerate medical progress and make the process of medicine itself smarter going forward?

Responding to this opportunity, and building on our strengths in interdisciplinary research, Fox Chase Cancer Center has embarked on an unprecedented reimagining of its research enterprise. The Keystone Programs for Collaborative Discovery are our bold approach to creating the best environment to support the best minds and best ideas, integrating evolving disciplines and focusing resources on the most pressing medical questions of our time.

Through an extensive internal review process and with the guiding counsel of an independent panel of leaders from the nation’s finest cancer institutions, Fox Chase has identified its initial Keystone Programs. The programs address every stage and level of the cancer continuum – from investigating the disease at the molecular level through exploring strategies for confronting the psychosocial challenges of survivorship. As cancer professionals and patients know, the best approach to a disease as complex as cancer is a coordinated team approach. Powerful partnerships form the core of the Keystone Programs.

The Philadelphia-area community already knows Fox Chase Cancer Center as the best in the region: U.S. News & World Report regularly ranks Fox Chase as the top ranked cancer hospital in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and one of the top five free-standing cancer-care facilities in the nation. Our reputation for excellence in basic science is reflected in our top-ten ranking among independent cancer research institutes in funding from the National Institutes of Health. With this foundation firmly in place, Fox Chase can now develop worldwide influence by focusing our expertise in carefully selected areas of challenge in cancer medicine.

As we realize the goals of the Keystone Programs over the next few years, physicians and patients worldwide will know Fox Chase Cancer Center for unsurpassed research programs and the ability to translate scientific breakthroughs rapidly into medical care.