UF Health team receives NCI Director’s Award

Two UF Health oncologists have been honored by the National Cancer Institute, or NCI, for their work on a national committee to develop and implement clinical trials for adolescent and young adult patients with cancer. 

Headshots of Carmen Allegra and Daniel Indelicato
Carmen Allegra, M.D., left, and Daniel Indelicato, M.D.

Daniel J. Indelicato, M.D., and Carmen Allegra, M.D., serve on the National Clinical Trial Network Adolescent and Young Adult Working Group, which received the NCI’s Director’s Award during an awards ceremony on March 27. Indelicato, the William and Joan Mendenhall Endowed Professor and associate vice chair in the department of radiation oncology in the UF College of Medicine, is a member of the UF Health Cancer Center’s Cancer Therapeutics & Host Response research program. Allegra is a professor emeritus in the division of hematology and oncology in the UF department of medicine. 

In recent years, adolescents and young adults with cancer (patients 15-39 years of age) have had significantly lower survival rates than both younger and older patients, which was believed to be related to their low participation in cancer clinical trials. To close this gap, Indelicato and Allegra joined worldwide efforts to develop clinical cancer trials relevant to adolescent and young adult patients to increase accrual to these trials. 

NCI Cancer Center badge