Skip to main content
An official website of the United States government

Pre-Cancer Atlas (PCA)

A tumor (yellow) is shown in the background. Components within the microenvironment are overlaid on the tumor, including a dendritic cell (pink), a T-cell (blue), a fibroblast (purple and pink), a natural killer cell (dark blue), a regulatory t cell (aqua), blood vessels (red), a macrophage cell (red with a yellow center), and a myeloid cell (green).

The Pre-cancer Atlas (PCA) Research Centers are part of the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN). HTAN, an NCI-collaborative program, is constructing multi-dimensional atlases of the cellular, morphological, molecular, and spatial features of human cancers and their surrounding microenvironments over time.

The atlases being created by HTAN describe important changes during cancer progression, such as the transition of precancers to malignant tumors, the evolution of metastatic cancer, and the development of treatment resistance.

HTAN is supported by the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP), NCI Division of Biology (DCB), the NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD), and the NCI Center for Strategic Science Initiatives (CSSI).

On This Page

  • All Heading 2s will automatically be pulled in to this list.
  • Do not edit the content on this template.

About Pre-Cancer Atlas

The Pre-cancer Atlas (PCA) Research Centers, along with the Human Tumor Atlas (HTA) Research Centers and a Data Coordinating Center (DCC), make up HTAN. Each PCA Research Center will create a 2D/3D precancer atlas of a pre-cancerous lesion, focusing on how it changes into cancer.

PCA Research Centers have three major tasks:

  • Collecting, processing, and labeling biospecimens.
  • Studying the molecular, cellular, and spatial details of the lesions.
  • Analyzing and modeling the data.

PCA Research Centers will collaborate with other components of HTAN to make the data and analytical tools available to the research community.

Grantee Details

PI Name PI Organization Title Grant Number Program Official
Zhu, Yazhen

University Of California Los Angeles
United States

 Extracellular Vesicle-Based Digital Scoring Assay for Detecting Early-stage Hepatocellular Carcinoma 5R01CA255727-05 Matthew Young, Ph.D.
Zhu, Yong

Univ Of Arkansas For Med Scis
United States

 Explore piRNAs as a novel group of biomarkers for ovarian cancer early detection 1R21CA277412-01A1 Christos Patriotis, Ph.D., M.Sc.
Zi, Xiaolin

University Of California-Irvine
United States

 Nautral products for targeting Skp2 in cancer interception 5UG3CA290368-02 Altaf Mohammed, Ph.D.