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Objectives of Project:

This program announcement (PA) has the following objectives:

1. To provide investigators with support for correlative studies using clinical trial-related tumor specimens to identify tumor characteristics and correlate patients’ genetic and molecular changes with tumorgenesis and progression, drug resistance, therapeutic effectiveness of interventions, and various clinical outcomes.

2. To use information from well-characterized tumor specimens to evaluate new cancer interventions. By utilizing these tumor tissue resources and accumulated clinical trial data, investigators may identify new mechanisms of action for cancer treatment.

3. To promote translational research, and foster collaborations between basic researchers and clinical investigators from academia, private industry, and non-profit organizations. These collaborations in correlative studies will facilitate rapid translation of the findings into better cancer risk assessment, early detection, treatment, and prediction of response to treatment or prevention.

Description of Project:

This initiative provides a funding mechanism for correlative laboratory studies linked to large scale, multi‑institutional clinical trials to improve therapeutic and preventive approaches. It also encourages new collaborations. For a relatively small additional investment, researchers will be able to obtain definitive data on the relationship of molecular biological features and clinical behavior of the human tumors. The continuation of this PA allows researchers to take advantage of newly developed technologies and existing annotated tumor specimens. It also promotes collaboration between basic researchers and clinical investigators. This PA contributes to the NCI’s goal of eliminating suffering and death due to cancer by 2015 by filling a critical need, funding correlative studies using specimens from multi-center clinical trials.

The investigator initiated research grant mechanism (R01) will be used to support large scale studies, and the exploratory/pilot grant mechanism (R21) will be used to support more exploratory studies. NCI will assist investigators with accessing specimens to ensure that promising new approaches will be moved rapidly into clinical practice.