Title:
Planning Grant for the Academic Public Private Partnership Program (AP4) (U56) (New RFA)

Contact:

Jill Johnson
Office of the Associate Director
Developmental Therapeutics Program
Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis
National Cancer Institute
EPN, Room 8020
Ph: 301-496-8720
e-mail: johnsoji@mail.nih.gov

Objective of Project:

The Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP), Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD), National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites academic cancer researchers to form partnerships among academia, industry, non-profit institutions, and government entities to conduct novel cancer therapeutic, prevention, diagnostic, and imaging intervention-directed research. The research should take advantage of the latest discovery and development technologies and focus on "orphan" cancers or biologically defined subsets of more common tumor types, using a multidisciplinary approach. The research will occur at the academic center with the advice and support of industrial, non-profit institute, and government partners and the NCI. NCI anticipates that selected research projects will be of great interest to the cancer research community as a whole and may be initiated as basic research projects. The goal of the research is to generate novel interventions for human clinical trials. The NCI is assisting the formation of these partnerships by beginning the effort with a one-year planning grant.

Description of Project:

Planning grants for the Academic Public Private Partnership Program (AP4) will support the conception and planning, and grant preparation activities for application to the AP4 initiative. Applicants are expected to utilize the planning grant to study the feasibility of developing the pharmaceutical/non-profit/academic interactions necessary to establish and support an AP4 Center, and to actually prepare the application. The planning grant period will include a meeting that brings together potential members to explore opportunities, define how intellectual property issues will be handled, and establish a research plan. The ideal planning grant will arise from an academic center with a clear track record in cancer biology with an overall theme and/or disease identified, along with a range of potential partners to be sought in actualizing the program, and resources to be brought to the program by the academic institution.