Connections are the key to fighting cancer

When he established The Hormel Institute in 1942, founder Jay C. Hormel considered gifting the institute to Mayo Clinic. Given the institute’s broad expertise at that time in biomedicine, food research and agricultural science, The Hormel Institute instead became part of University of Minnesota, creating a new center for research and discovery. The initial vision of joining scientists and physicians from the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic is still at the heart of The Hormel Institute’s collaborative strategy, even as it became a center exclusively dedicated to cancer research in the 1990s.

A recent outcome of that collaboration, for instance, is an ongoing trial managed by Masonic Cancer Center at UMN and conducted by Minnesota Cancer Clinical Trials Network (MNCCTN) to examine how ginger acts on the gut microbiome to reduce the risk of colon cancer. The trial was based on published studies, conducted at the Mayo Clinic Health Center in Austin, from The Hormel Institute demonstrating that a compound in ginger reduces colon cancer growth. The clinical trial is now open at 15 sites across Minnesota, and a “broad swath of the population is represented,” says Marie Rahne, senior manager of MNCCTN.

The Hormel Institute’s advisory board has six members, two from University of Minnesota, two from Mayo Clinic and two from The Hormel Foundation. In 2008, The Hormel Institute, the University of Minnesota, and Mayo Clinic signed an official research partnership, a “general agreement to foster research together across institutions,” according to Gregory Gores, executive dean for research at the Mayo Clinic and member of The Hormel Institute’s advisory board. “This partnership strengthens the discovery-translation application continuum of cancer research.”

The three research institutions bring unique strengths to the partnership. The Hormel Institute excels at basic cancer biology research. “They’ve done a lot of examination of natural compounds and how they could be used for cancer prevention and treatment,” says Frank Ondrey, co-leader of the Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Program at the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Cancer Center. These efforts have resulted in the identification of between 40 and 60 promising pipeline compounds. Mayo Clinic and Masonic Cancer Center have a broader range of scientific investigators with complementary expertise to those at The Hormel Institute. Researchers across institutions collaborate to better understand the mechanisms underlying these compounds, and which drugs are most appropriate for clinical trials.

To bridge the gap between discovery and application, The Hormel Institute collaborates with both Masonic Cancer Center at UMN and Mayo Clinic to translate its research into clinical trials. Masonic Cancer Center and Mayo Clinic are two of the distinguished 71 centers across the US recognized by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as leaders in cancer research, or "NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers", and both serve patients across Minnesota. The outcome of such collaborations was the ginger trial with MNCCTN. “Those collaborations give The Hormel Institute access to that translational component,” says Rahne.

Additionally, all three institutions collaborate through MC² (Minnesota Chemoprevention Consortium), a quarterly meeting started by The Hormel Institute to present and share cancer research discoveries. Facilitating connections between the three institutions aims to prevent cancer in those at risk, make treatment more readily available, and ultimately find a cure, says Max Huber, communications and marketing manager at the Masonic Cancer Center. “Getting brilliant minds together is imperative to what we do."