Current Funding Opportunities

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to support the validation of molecular/cellular/imaging markers and assays for cancer detection, diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring, and prediction of response or resistance to treatment, as well as markers for cancer prevention and control. This FOA also includes the validation of pharmacodynamic markers and markers of toxicity. Applicants should have assays that work on human samples and whose importance is well justified for development into clinical assays. As chemotherapies and/or radiation therapies are increasingly combined with immunotherapies to enhance durability of anti-cancer responses, multiple assays for measuring multiple markers, including immune markers, can be developed and validated simultaneously.

Contact: Dr. Tracy Lively, 240-276-5944, livelyt@mail.nih.gov

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to accelerate the adoption and validation of molecular/cellular/imaging markers and assays for cancer detection, diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring, and prediction of response or resistance to treatment, as well as markers for cancer prevention and control. This FOA also includes the validation of pharmacodynamic markers and markers of toxicity. Applicants to this FOA must have an assay(s) whose performance has been analytically validated in specimens similar to those for the intended clinical use of the assay(s) and marker(s). As chemotherapies and/or radiation therapies are increasingly combined with immunotherapies to enhance durability of anti-cancer responses, multiple assays for measuring multiple markers, including immune markers, can be developed and validated simultaneously.

Contact Dr. Tracy Lively, 240-276-5944, livelyt@mail.nih.gov

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to encourage revision applications (formerly called "competing revisions") from currently funded NCI R01 research projects. The applicants should propose projects that are expected to accelerate the pace of translation of NCI-supported methods/assays/technologies (referred to as "assays") to the clinic. Specifically, the focus of applications submitted in response to this FOA should be on the adaption and clinical validation of molecular/cellular/imaging markers (referred to as "markers" or "biomarkers") for cancer detection, diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring, and prediction of response in treatment, as well as markers for cancer prevention and control. Applications may support the acquisition of well-annotated specimens from NCI-supported or other clinical trials or observational cohorts/consortia for the purpose of clinical validation of the assay. Research projects proposed in response to this FOA encourage multi-disciplinary interaction among scientific investigators, assay developers, clinicians, statisticians, and clinical laboratory staff. Clinical laboratory scientist(s) and statistical experts are highly encouraged to comprise integral parts of the application. This FOA is not intended to support early-stage development of technology or the conduct of clinical trials, but rather the adaption and validation of assays to the point where they could be integrated into clinical trials as investigational assays/tools/devices.

Contact Dr. Tracy Lively, 240-276-5944, livelyt@mail.nih.gov

This FOA specifies a partnership structure that is expected to help bridge gaps in knowledge and experience by engaging the strengths of academic, industrial, and other investigators. The partners on each application should establish an inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional research team to work in strategic alliance to implement a coherent strategy to develop and translate a solution to their chosen problem. They are expected to plan, design, and validate that the solution will be suitable for end users. Each partnership should include at least one academic and one industrial organization. Each partnership should plan to transition a technology, method, assay, device, and/or system from a demonstration of possibility to a status useful in the chosen setting. Funding may be requested to enhance, adapt, optimize, validate, and otherwise translate technologies that address problems in biology, pathology, risk assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and/or monitoring of disease status.

See full announcement on grants.nih.gov

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to seek research projects that implement early phase (Phase 0, I, and II) investigator-initiated clinical trials focused on cancer-targeted diagnostic and therapeutic interventions of direct relevance to the research mission of the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD). Applicants are strongly encouraged to consult the NCI DCTD website to learn more about the various program goals, research priorities, and strategies developed to fight cancer. Applications submitted to this FOA must include studies that meet the National Institutes of Health (NIH) definition of a clinical trial (see NOT-OD-15-015 for details) and provide specific clinical trial information as described in this FOA. Applications that propose phase III clinical trials in any area of cancer research are not sought by and will not be supported through this FOA.

CDP contact: Dr. Tracy Lively, 240-276-5944, livelyt@mail.nih.gov
See full announcement on grants.nih.gov

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) supports the development of new exploratory research in cancer diagnosis, treatment, imaging, symptom/toxicity, and prevention clinical trials; correlative studies associated with clinical trials; novel cancer therapeutic, symptom/toxicity, and preventive agent development, radiotherapy development activities, and mechanism-driven combinations; innovative preclinical studies, including the use of new clinically-relevant models and imaging technologies, which could lead to first-in-human clinical trials, and therapeutic outcome disparities, including biomarkers or genetic/epigenetic signatures, among diverse racial/ethnic populations, including genetically engineered mouse models, patient-derived xenograft models, organoids, and cell lines.

Contact: Dr. Tracy Lively, 240-276-5944, livelyt@mail.nih.gov

This FOA supports the development of innovative methods and algorithms in biomedical computing, informatics, and data science addressing priority needs across the cancer research continuum.

CDP contact: Dr. Aniruddha Ganguly, gangulya@mail.nih.gov

This FOA supports the development of enabling informatics technologies to improve the acquisition, management, analysis, and dissemination of data and knowledge in support of cancer research.

CDP contact: Dr. Aniruddha Ganguly, gangulya@mail.nih.gov

This FOA supports the advanced development and enhancement of emerging informatics technologies to improve the acquisition, management, analysis, and dissemination of data and knowledge in support of cancer research.

This FOA supports the continued development and sustainment of high-value informatics research resources to serve current and emerging needs across the cancer research continuum.

CDP contact: Dr. Aniruddha Ganguly, gangulya@mail.nih.gov

The EBRGs support early bioengineering research. EBRG applications may contain minimal or no preliminary data, and may propose hypothesis-driven, discovery-driven or design-directed research.

CDP contact: Dr. Miguel Ossandon, 240-276-5714, ossandom@mail.nih.gov

The purpose of this FOA is to encourage collaborations between the life and physical sciences that: 1) apply a multidisciplinary bioengineering approach to the solution of a biomedical problem; and 2) accelerate the adoption of promising tools, methods and techniques for a specific research or clinical problem in basic, translational, or clinical science and practice. An application may propose design-directed, developmental, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven research and is appropriate for small teams applying an integrative approach.

CDP contact: Dr. Miguel Ossandon, 240-276-5714, ossandom@mail.nih.gov

The purpose of this FOA is to encourage collaborations between the life and physical sciences that: 1) apply a multidisciplinary bioengineering approach to the solution of a biomedical problem; and 2) accelerate the adoption of promising tools, methods and techniques for a specific research or clinical problem in basic, translational, or clinical science and practice. An application may propose design-directed, developmental, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven research and is appropriate for small teams applying an integrative approach.

CDP contact: Dr. Miguel Ossandon, 240-276-5714, ossandom@mail.nih.gov

The BRPs support large basic, applied, and translational multi-disciplinary research performed by multiple organizations that applies an integrative approach, which includes bioengineering and biomedical/clinical components.

CDP contact: Dr. Miguel Ossandon, 240-276-5714, ossandom@mail.nih.gov

The goal is to design and develop tools, technologies, or products to: (i) inform oncologists and other health care providers treating cancer patients in settings with low access to genetic counselors about NGS testing and current NCCN guidelines, (ii) help such providers evaluate the need for NGS somatic testing for their cancer patients, (iii) assist providers with interpretation of NGS results (including distinguishing between somatic and incidental germline findings), and (iv) help providers communicate NGS results to their patients. Interpretation of NGS results must be personalized for individual patients. Tools that cater to settings with limited or no access to genetic counselors are encouraged. Tools should: (i) assist providers with communicating test results in a clear and lay-friendly manner, to aid patients’ treatment or life planning decisions; (ii) inform providers about genetic counseling resources for their patients; (iii) offer options for video and telephone guidance, especially for patients located in remote settings; (iv) incorporate perspectives of populations experiencing disparities in cancer outcomes, such as minority, underserved and rural communities; and (v) identify strategies for enhancing access to tools for understanding cancer genomic test results. In addition, contractors must evaluate, pilot and disseminate the tool. For more information, click here.

Contact: Dr. Emi Casas-Silva, (240)-276-6989, emi.casas-silva@nih.gov

The short-term goal of this concept is to stimulate the development of unbiased (i.e. untargeted) discovery proteomic technologies with the capacity to identify proteins in a single cell with a typical size (~10 ?m in diameter).

The mid-term goal is to provide efficient research tools with the ability to generate more complete and accurate human cancer proteome information without relying on antibodies or inferring proteomes from mRNA sequencing. Protein sequencing at the single-cell level will allow a better understanding of tumor heterogeneity and microenvironment. Single-cell proteomics will also enable capturing proteomic information from rare and low-abundant cells such as circulating tumor cells and migratory dendritic cells. This will open the door to new biomarker and therapeutic target discoveries in cancers.

The long-term goals also include providing efficient clinical tools for precision medicine by matching patients to therapies based on their proteomic results from clinically relevant samples; earlier cancer detection with the ability to better differentiate healthy normal cells from cancerous cells by adding proteomic information to the genomic and transcriptomic data; and better assessment of treatment response and monitoring with the capacity to get more precise clonal information. For more information, click here.

Contact: Dr. Linda Zane, (240) 276-5931, linda.zane@nih.gov

The short-term goal of this concept is to stimulate the development of technologies that generate sequence information from slides without losing the histological context of the targets. These technologies must have the capability to identify thousands of genes in a tissue sample and must be able to select, visualize and compare sequences in areas of interest.

The long-term goal is to provide research and/or clinical tools to improve cancer early detection, diagnosis, prognosis for precision medicine. Such tools can be used to identify location of aggressive/mutated clones within the tumor; differentiate between the center and infiltrating edges of the tumor; find correlation between molecular changes and cytology or atypia; evaluate molecular changes in the stroma infiltrated by the tumor verse stroma outside the tumor; and discover epithelial mesenchymal transition.

The activities that fall within the scope of this solicitation include the development of technologies that can sequence the DNA or the RNA within fresh frozen or fixed normal and tumor cells without destroying their spatial context, and it can be used to directly link spatial features to particular genetic elements in native tissue or organoid specimens; integration of image modalities with cellular sequencing data; cellular mapping and characterization of tumor sequence with the spatial distribution of the original microenvironment including the complex organization of different cell types that are tightly regulated by the interplay of the individual cells. Contractors are not required to obtain whole genome/transcriptome data for all the cells on the entire slide but are required to demonstrate improved capabilities of the technology compared with existing special sequencing technologies. For more information, click here.

Contact: Dr. Linda Zane, (240) 276-5931, linda.zane@nih.gov

The overall goal of this solicitation is to stimulate the development of advanced manufacturing technologies that substantially improve the speed and cost of producing autologous cell-based therapies. Technical solutions are expected to involve parallel processing (i.e., multiplexing) of individual cell-based therapies, although other approaches are encouraged. New technologies must produce cell-based products of equal or superior quality as compared to current manufacturing methods. In addition, the NCI encourages system design features that enable rapid and iterative customization to support bench-to-bedside-to-bench research. For example, technologies may involve a modular engineering approach in which the system can be readily adapted as the critical quality attributes of cell-based products are refined over time based on new clinical research. Proposals submitted under this topic must involve a collaboration between technology developers and clinical researchers with experience developing and treating patients with autologous cell-based cancer therapies. Phase I projects will be expected to involve feasibility testing of the proposed advanced manufacturing technology. A key activity during the Phase I project is to benchmark the novel advanced manufacturing approach against the current manufacturing method for a specific autologous cell-based product. More specifically, the research plan must include validating the proposed novel manufacturing approach against a process that has been used to produce product for clinical trials by demonstrating comparability of products with respect to specific critical quality attributes. Phase II projects will be expected to conduct full-scale parallel processing to demonstrate a substantial increase in the speed and cost of producing autologous cell-based therapies. It is anticipated that most offerors will propose to study T-cell-based immunotherapy products, although other cell types are also encouraged (e.g., NK cells). Advanced manufacturing approaches may involve genetic engineering and optimization as appropriate for the cell-based therapy product, but the primary goal is to achieve substantial cost and throughput improvements for the overall vein-to-vein process. Projects proposing to use allogeneic cell-based therapies for technology validation will not be considered responsive under this solicitation. For more information, click here.

Contact: Dr. Linda Zane, (240) 276-5931, linda.zane@nih.gov