Affiliated Research Partners

Radiation oncology research efforts flourish in the collaborative atmosphere and practices of the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center and through our associations with other schools, departments and major research centers. We actively collaborate in clinical or laboratory research with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Mather VA Medical Center, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and other departments at UC Davis Health. 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was founded in 1952 with a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of the present day. Faculty within radiation oncology have joint appointments here allowing access to the scientific infrastructure and content at that facility.

Sacramento VA Medical Center

UC Davis Radiation Oncology has had a 10-year relationship with the Sacramento VA Medical Center of Mather, California (VA Mather) and is increasing its collaboration in clinical, educational and research arenas.

VA Mather is part of the VA Northern California Health Care System, which is a unique, affiliated health care system, providing a full range of medical care to veterans who live in Northern California, an area consisting of 600,000 veterans dispersed over approximately 40,000 square miles. The state’s demographics are changing, with more elderly people moving to Northern California, and the VA sees many of these people. The VA Mather has a new, state-of-the-art hospital with research facilities and offers a wide range of medical and surgical inpatient and outpatient programs and services. The relationship between the UC Davis Radiation Oncology Department and the VA Mather is being further strengthened by:

• Our UC Davis radiobiologist having a joint appointment with the VA and using VA lab space for his research
• A prostate brachytherapy program (the VA has a substantial number of prostate cancer patients)
• UC Davis radiation oncology residents participating in the care of VA patients
• UC Davis faculty radiation oncologists providing consultation at the VA and participating in additional multidisciplinary conferences.

UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

A unique element of the UC Davis Radiation Oncology program is its work with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine – the largest of the nation's twenty-eight veterinary schools, with faculty and staff who treat about 30,000 animal patients a year. UC Davis Veterinary Medicine is a partner in the Radiation Oncology program, adding veterinary medicine to the strengths of biological science and human medicine. Veterinary medicine contributes directly to human health by investigating and controlling diseases shared by animals and humans, such as cancer. Faculty members also actively pursue basic and applied research in departments and through interdisciplinary centers of excellence. The Center for Comparative Medicine brings veterinary and human medical scientists together to investigate the causes and cures of persistent infectious diseases shared by animals and humans, and to encourage an interest in laboratory careers.

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center programs add immense expertise and resources to the Radiation Oncology program.  UC Davis is a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center, with six research programs: molecular oncology, cancer biology in animals, cancer therapeutics, population sciences and health disparities, prostate cancer and biomedical technology. The complexities of cancer encourage multidisciplinary collaboration. 

At UC Davis, major collaborative groups include the Prostate Cancer Affinity Group, which focuses on the biology of prostate cancer; the Signal Transduction Program, which focuses on basic cellular processes which go awry and thereby give rise to cancer; the Radioimmunotherapy Program, which both uses radioactive drugs to seek and kill cancer cells and drugs to select cancer cells for exposure to radiation; and the Developmental Therapeutics Program, which combines clinical trials with basic science to create and test new chemotherapeutic agents. The Developmental Therapeutics Program also includes the areas of toxicology, molecular and clinical pharmacology. UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center program multidisciplinary efforts extend beyond the walls of the university as well.