COGI logo

Berek
Jonathan S. Berek, MD, MMS
Professor & Chair
COGI Group PI

The Cooperative Ovarian Cancer Group for Immunotherapy (COGI), based at Stanford University, is a consortium of ovarian cancer researchers from 22 leading academic medical centers throughout the United States and United Kingdom, including Stanford University, Harvard University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Washington. This group was formed in 2004 to focus on the development of vaccines and innovative immunotherapies for ovarian cancer.

Ten institutions are full COGI members and 29 institutions are affiliates. Since its inception, COGI has met annually as a group to plan strategy, and has supported laboratory programs, each of which will initiate a clinical vaccine trial directed for ovarian cancer.

The overall strategy and aims of COGI are to:

  1. Develop a strong Core Program that coordinates a network of clinical investigators who are dedicated to the conduct of innovative clinical trials of vaccines and immunotherapies in ovarian cancer.
  2. Support and facilitate basic laboratory investigations that are designed to translate to clinical trials of ovarian cancer vaccines.
  3. Create partnerships with biotech industry that will support and utilize our group to conduct meaningful trials and perform correlative assays to study the mechanism of action of the therapies.
  4. Recruit additional funding to expand our programs and to enable sustained funding beyond our granting period.

Colleen FitzsimmonsCOGI is led by group principal investigator, Dr. Jonathan Berek, Professor and Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University School of Medicine, and the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Stanford Cancer CenterCentral management of this organization is performed by Stanford University personnel, led by COGI Program Coordinator, Colleen Fitzsimmons. (left)

This consortium includes key research laboritories at the University of Pennsylvania, directed by George Coukos, MD, PhD; and at the Univerisity of Washington, led by Nora Disis, PhD.