Rutgers Cancer Cachexia Consortium
CANCAN-RUTGERS
A team at Rutgers is bringing experts together to understand why cancer causes severe weight, muscle, and fat loss and to find new ways to help people with cancer stay stronger.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Newark, UNITED STATES) |
| Project ID | NIH-11235473 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
This project brings together international experts to identify the tumor and body signals that cause cancer-related weight, muscle, and fat loss. Researchers will combine lab experiments, animal models, and detailed clinical profiling of patients — including biological samples and metabolic and neurohormonal testing — to connect tumor biology with symptoms like anorexia and tissue atrophy. A virtual institute will standardize data, share methods across centers, and coordinate multidisciplinary discovery science. Over the grant period they aim to pinpoint targets that could lead to future treatments and clinical trials.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: People with cancer who are losing weight, losing muscle mass, or showing signs of cachexia (such as reduced appetite or rapid unintended weight loss) are the most relevant candidates for involvement.
Not a fit: People without cancer or those whose weight loss is due to non-cancer causes are unlikely to benefit directly from this project in the near term.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to therapies that prevent or reverse wasting, improve chemotherapy tolerance, and increase quality of life and survival for people with cancer.
How similar studies have performed: Decades of research have described how muscles waste away but have not produced effective treatments, so this upstream, multidisciplinary approach is promising but still early-stage.
Where this research is happening
Newark, UNITED STATES
- Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences — Newark, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: White, Eileen P. — Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences
- Study coordinator: White, Eileen P.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.