National Cancer Institute Designation

The UNM Cancer Center’s 128 members are organized into three interdisciplinary Research Programs—Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Cellular & Molecular Oncology, and Cancer Therapeutics. They are supported by $26M in annual direct cancer-relevant funding. With $2.7M in additional NCI contracts and supplements, total annual NCI funding to the UNM Cancer Center is $8.8M. UNM Cancer Center research is highly interactive and impactful, with 12–39% collaborative publications across Research Programs, 22% of 731 publications in high-impact journals, 31 patents filed, and 6 new start-up companies. Reflecting the highly collaborative nature of UNMCCC science, the Center holds 20 cancer-focused multi-investigator grants.

We particularly focus on cancers with high risk factors, high incidence, mortality, or unequal distributions in New Mexico. Environmental carcinogens present in New Mexico communities are a major concern, particularly among American Indian and rural populations. These carcinogens include arsenic, uranium, cadmium, molybdenum, and mercury, as well as combustion particles and microplastics. Many New Mexicans also have high rates of exposure to UV radiation (UVR) resulting from our high desert location and more than 300 days per year of sunshine.

We are building a database that contains deidentified, aggregate data from public and proprietary sources that contain information about population demographics (e.g., ancestry, sex, age), socio-demographic information (e.g., measures of income and poverty), geographic characteristics (e.g., urban/rural status), cancer risk factors (e.g., smoking and obesity), and preventive behaviors (e.g., cancer screening behavior). Called CRIIS, this fully-integrated cancer informatics platform with an optimized user interface that includes tools for conducting statistical analyses and data visualization. The CRIIS system completed development in June of 2025 and has only very recently become available for use through the Bioinformatics & Data Science Shared Resource. 

The UNM Cancer Center Office of Community Outreach & Engagement facilitates reducing the cancer burden in New Mexico by promoting cancer research opportunities and achieving parity in health outcomes through bi-directional engagement between the Center and the communities we serve. Cancer incidence and outcomes are monitored by the NM Tumor Registry (a founding member of the NCI SEER Program) and the NM HPV Pap Registry (founded in 2006).

Over the past five years, more than 850 trainees were mentored through CRTECC-led programs, which offers programs for scientists from the middle school level through junior faculty level. Since 2015, 67% of our undergraduate students, supported by two training grants from the National Cancer Institute and one training grant from the American Cancer Society, have successfully graduated from college or university, with 30% still enrolled. Of the students who graduated, 52% enrolled in graduate or professional programs, and 23% have graduated.

The UNM Cancer Center is New Mexico’s sole provider for many highly specialized cancer services, and we provide access to innovative cancer clinical trials, new drugs, and therapies. Its Clinical Research Office supports the UNM Cancer Center’s vast clinical research efforts. These efforts span several different disciplines, institutions, research groups, and community programs and include all the counties in New Mexico. The UNM Cancer Center also partners with the New Mexico Cancer Research Alliance (NMCRA), the New Mexico statewide cancer clinical trials network that partners with the majority of community-based oncology providers in New Mexico and is funded as an NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP).

In 2023, the UNM Cancer Center broke ground on a 50,000-sq.-ft. expansion to the UNM Cancer Treatment and Clinical Research Facility with $52M from the state legislative and executive branches. The expansion was driven by demand for access to the specialized services that we provide the state. This expansion will allow the UNM Cancer Center to offer access to several new cancer services and clinical trial platforms for New Mexicans, most not currently available in the state. These include:

1. Expanded radiation oncology services with magnetic resonance (MR) image-guided radiotherapy. A state-of-the-art MR image-guided linear accelerator (MR-Linac), with advanced, real-time, imaging-controlled treatment delivery. This is a technology that does not exist in the state today, and its artificial intelligence capabilities will open new opportunities for cutting-edge clinical trials in Radiation Oncology.
2. Expansion of services for cancer treatments using targeted radioisotopes and theranostics.
3. Expansion of the state’s only accredited services for bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, cell-based therapies, and advanced immunotherapies, including a new FDA 351/361 rated cGMP Laboratory.