During the past several years CCRTD scientists have established a close collaboration and working relationships with the scientists at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, which is based at the Georgia Institute of Technology and is only a short distance away from Clark Atlanta University.

This interaction is based at several levels but is very prominent in the areas of gene expression analysis in individual patients. Dr. Shafiq Khan has an adjunct appointment at Georgia Tech and is part of the ovarian cancer consortium. The Ovarian Cancer Institute (OCI) is a virtual research center with main laboratories located at Georgia Institute of Technology and collaborating research laboratories located at Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, Emory University, Georgia State University, Clark Atlanta University, the Medical College of Georgia, Harvard University, North Carolina State University and the Mayo Clinic. Under the direction of Chief Scientific Officer Dr. John McDonald (http://www.biology.gatech.edu/mcdonald_lab/), OCI maintains one of the largest ovarian cancer tissue banks (>1000 patient samples) and patient history databases in the world.

The OCI research program is based on an integrated approach to cancer research combining high-throughput genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and nano-technologies with the goal of establishing new and effective diagnostics and therapeutics for ovarian cancer. The OCI has an ongoing collaborative agreement with a major medical facility (Saint Joseph Hospital) to obtain and analyze samples from individual ovarian cancer patients.