History
1998
- OCCAM established within NCI’s Office of the Director
- Dr. Jeffrey D. White named OCCAM’s director
- NCI Best Case Series Program transitioned from the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program to OCCAM
1999
- Established CAM Cancer Research Interest Group
- Co-sponsored and presented at the second Comprehensive Cancer Care Conference
- Established Cancer CAM Invited Speaker Series open to the NIH community
2000
- Launched OCCAM Web site
2001
- Published Letter RFA (Request for Applications) to provide supplemental funding to NCI Cancer Centers for CAM projects
- Established supplement program for Community Clinical Oncology Program
- Held Methodology Working Group on CAM Symptom Management Research in Cancer meeting
2002
- Published first program announcement, Developmental/Pilot Projects in Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) (PA-02-040)
2003
- Funded first international CAM research center grant R21 awarded to The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Cancer Hospital, Fudan University in Shanghai, China
- Held first grantwriting workshop on cancer and CAM
2004
- Reissued Developmental Projects in Complementary Approaches to Cancer program announcement (PA-04-053)
2005
- Co-produced cancer education booklet Thinking About Complementary and Alternative Medicine
- Held second grantwriting workshop on cancer and CAM
- Provided programmatic support for the First International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology
2006
- Held first major conference,Traditional Chinese Medicine and Cancer Research: Fostering Collaboration; Advancing the Science
- Reissued Developmental Projects in Complementary Approaches to Cancer program announcement for a second time (PA-06-400)
- Published first NCI Annual Report on CAM
- Published first issue of newsletter NCI CAM News
- Began hosting monthly lectures given by NCI grantees and scientists conducting research in cancer CAM
- Developed Cancer CAM Research Funding Directory to help researchers identify potential funding sources for cancer CAM research projects
- Hosted third grantwriting workshop at the Third International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology
2007
- Transitioned from the NCI’s Office of the Director to the NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis
- Held conference on developing successful research collaborations on cancer CAM, Cancer Researchers and CAM Practitioners: Fostering Collaboration; Advancing the Science
- Sponsored an international fellow from Beijing, China working on botanical-based cancer therapies at an NCI intramural lab
- Held Mixed Bacterial Vaccines as Cancer Therapy Meeting to discuss the potential directions of a participant of the NCI Best Case Series Program
2008
- Published second NCI Annual Report on CAM
- Co-sponsored the first annual NIH Yoga Week with other federal agencies
- Worked with NCI’s Natural Products Branch to establish a collaboration with the Kunming Institute of Botany to perform screening of natural products for anticancer activity
- Published “Survey of Cancer Researchers Regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine” in the Journal of the Society of Integrative Oncology.