Stony Brook Cancer Center Senior Leadership has appointed nationally recognized scientists to lead each research program. Within this page is a description of the policies and procedures for determining membership.
There are 119 SBCC members, and most are organized as a member of at least one of the three research programs:
- Lipid Signaling and Metabolism in Cancer
- Imaging, Biomarker Discovery and Engineering Sciences
- Oncogenic Drivers and Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis
Membership Process
Once an application is received by the SBCC Administrative Unit, the potential Program Co-Leaders review it and evaluate the applicant at the monthly SBCC Research Committee meeting. The Committee makes a formal recommendation to the Senior Leadership Council (SLC). The SLC makes recommendations on membership and the Director makes the final decision on all membership appointments. The Associate Director for Administration and their staff are responsible for notifying the applicant and all record keeping and administration of membership information. Members are tracked in a database capable of linking grant, publication, and other relevant information for reports such as those required in the CCSG application as well as internal reports.
Membership Categories and Eligibility Criteria
The SBCC classifies its members into three categories based on specific criteria. Because Research and Associate Research members are the primary contributors to the SBCC research mission, these two categories are the only ones included in this CCSG applications.
Research Member: This category designates SBCC faculty who are actively conducting basic, translational, clinical, or population-based cancer research. An individual must be a PI or Multi-PI on a grant from the National Cancer Institute (or an NCI-approved peer-reviewing agency or organization) and/or a PI on an investigator-initiated trial while accruing a minimum of ten patients to interventional treatment clinical trials per year. Project leaders on SPOREs, P01s, or similar mechanisms are considered Principal Investigators. Individuals may also be considered if they are PIs with funding from other NIH agencies that support cancer research. SBCC leadership may consider membership in this category for mid/senior faculty who do not hold their own cancer funding, but who play a significant scientific role as co-investigator with other Research Member(s) and/or hold key scientific leadership positions – although this eligibility would only be available in very limited circumstances.
Research members must have recent cancer-related publications in peer-reviewed journals, must be active in an SBCC research program, and must utilize SBCC Shared Resources as appropriate. Members in this category will be included on the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG).
Associate Research Member: Membership in this category is predominately held by junior faculty with nonpeer-reviewed, cancer-related research funding or career development awards. The SBCC Leadership closely monitors faculty in this category, with the goal of transitioning them to Research members within a three-year timeframe. Clinical researchers who are actively enrolling patients and are serving as local site PIs of industry or NCTN-sponsored trials (but do not meet the requirement for Research Member) would also be eligible for this category. Associate Research Members must be active in an SBCC research program and will be included on the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG).
Clinical Member: Clinical members represent SBUCC physicians who are directly involved in the Center’s patient care mission. These members are not involved in initiating their own research and are enrolling less than ten patients on interventional treatment trials per year. Members in this category will not be included in the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG).
Annual Review and Renewal Process
Changes in status, such as retirement or relocation, are processed as they occur and reported monthly to the SBCC Research Committee. Annually, the SBCC Research Committee reviews the research efforts (e.g., grants, publications, trial accrual if appropriate, program participation, and shared resource usage) of active members and votes to either recommend renewal or recategorization of the membership of each individual.
Non-programmatically Aligned Members
The SBCC is organized around its scientific strengths, and consequently, most members are aligned with a program. The Center currently has 20 unaligned members, mostly clinical investigators driving the SBCC’s participation in clinical trials outside the scientific aims of the three research programs.