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Jonsson Comprehensive

Contact Information

200 UCLA Medical Plaza, Suite 120 Los Angeles, CA 90095
(888) 662-8252

Affiliated Doctors

Dr. Robert B Cameron

The Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) at UCLA provides treatment, education, and research for all varieties of cancer. The JCCC’s main location is at the Westwood campus, but they also have many other locations around Los Angeles County. In the 1960s, a group of scientists collaborated to form a cancer center that could be a hub for cancer care as well as research. The result was what became known as the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 1976 the JCCC achieved the designation as Comprehensive Cancer Center from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). There are 65 facilities in the U.S. that have been given the designation of cancer center by the NCI and only 40 are comprehensive cancer centers (CCC). In fact the JCCC is one of the biggest CCCs in the country.

As an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, the job and goal of JCCC is to conduct research in order to better understand the cancer and to develop better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease. They also provide a wide variety of services related to cancer. First of all, they treat every type of cancer, including lung cancer and mesothelioma, with surgical, medicinal, and radiation treatments. They provide support to each patient in the form of cancer education and a variety of support services.

The JCCC has 235 scientists and physicians who see over 20,000 patients a year. They conduct and make available to their patients hundreds of clinical trials that each offer new drugs to fight cancer and other new drug therapies.

Research The JCCC at UCLA has twelve different areas of cancer research that are organized into three separate Divisions.

Basic Research Division

The Basic Research Division strives to:

Unite physicians and scientists with similar research interests in particular academic areas but who have different specialties
Provide a way for them to share their ideas and perform joint research
Help these researchers translate their work into practical new ways to prevent, diagnose, manage, and even cure cancer.

Two of the Programs within the Basic Research Division are:

Cancer Cell Biology – This is the research area that tries to understand just what controls the progression of cancer. They also compare the changes in cancer cells with changes in normal cells. One of the scientific themes they focus on is cancer stem cell biology.
Cancer Molecular Imaging – The scientists in this arena use molecular imaging to study cancer. They do this first in the laboratory using models and then ultimately apply their study to people. Molecular imaging is a non-invasive way of seeing important molecules and the process that occur as cancer grows. This molecular imaging is important in detecting and identifying the specific cancer and in choosing the correct therapies for the patient.

Clinical Translational Research Division

Rather than being organized by academic departments, as is the Basic Research Division, the Clinical Translational Research Division is organized by strengths between disciplines in particular cancers. Among its research areas is a Thoracic Oncology research program.

The Thoracic Oncology research program is referred to as “multidisciplinary translational” research. This means that their research is done to understand the biology of lung and other thoracic cancers like mesothelioma in order to find better was to prevent, diagnose, and treat it. When discoveries are made in the laboratory, they are “translated” to the bedside by the use of clinical trials.