The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) is one of the 18 United States National Laboratories and the only U.S. National Laboratory exclusively dedicated to

biomedical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of ...

. The Frederick National Laboratory is sponsored by NIH/ National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Federally Funded Research and Development Centers,https://frederick.cancer.gov/about/mission and its day-to-day operation is managed by the private contractor Leidos Biomedical Research for the NCI. The institution was originally established under the name NCI-Frederick Cancer Research Center in 1972 as a component of U.S. President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

's War on Cancer initiative. In 2012, the institution received a National Laboratory designation and assumed its current name, becoming the only U.S. national laboratory dedicated entirely to

. The campus located within Fort Detrick U.S. Army Installation in

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in, and the county seat of, Frederick County, Maryland, United States. Frederick's population was 78,171 people as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Maryland, second-largest ...

, also houses National Cancer Institute laboratories and administrative organizations, and is colloquially referred to as NCI-Frederick.

History

As part of the 1971 War on Cancer initiative,

requested that the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

transfer land and buildings which were then part of Fort Detrick to the

Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

in order to support the research efforts of the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

. The new laboratory was established in 1972 under the name "Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center" and received a designation as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center in 1975. This organizational model, also used by

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...

and

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

among others, specifies a type of public-private partnership composed of an institution that is owned by the federal government but operated by a private contractor. The laboratory was administratively reorganized in 1981, resulting in changing the name to "Frederick Cancer Research Center". In 2012, it was formally designated "Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research", becoming the first U.S. national laboratory owned by the Department of Health and Human Services and the only one exclusively dedicated to

. (HHS has since also established the CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare in cooperation with the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer ...

.) The transition to redesignate FNLCR as a national laboratory was spearheaded by then-NCI director Harold Varmus.

Current operations

FNLCR currently operates a number of research programs and facilities designed to support

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

research goals. FNLCR contains two

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

manufacturing facilities to support

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

s run by the

and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; manages a large collection of research samples, biological specimens, and mouse models used in cancer research; and hosts specific research projects such as the RAS Initiative, aimed at studying the biology of common oncogenes in the Ras subfamily, and the

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

Characterization Laboratory. Since 1995, the contractor operating the facility has been Leidos Biomedical Research (formerly SAIC-Frederick). That contract was renewed for ten years in 2008. In 2015 the NCI began seeking applications for a new contract expected to be awarded in January 2017; however, this search was suspended in September 2016. In January 2025, NCI awarded the nonprofit Alliance for Advancing Biomedical Research, an entity from the University of California system, an $89 billion Operations contract that could last up to 25 years.

NCI-Frederick

In addition to the FNLCR, the Frederick biomedical research campus also houses NCI facilities such as research laboratories, administrative organizations, and the separate NCI Center for Cancer Research. The facilities are collectively known as NCI-Frederick but are administratively distinct.

References

External links

*
NCI
account on USAspending.gov {{Coord, 39.438761, -77.362607, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-MD, display=title National Institutes of Health Federally Funded Research and Development Centers Laboratories in the United States 1972 establishments in Maryland Government agencies established in 1972