Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2012

The Fiscal Year 2012 (FY12) Defense Appropriations Act provides $120 million (M) to the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) to support innovative, high-impact breast cancer research.  The BCRP is administered by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) through the Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) has released the following Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) funding mechanisms for Fiscal Year 2012.

Clinical Translational Research Award
Eligibility: Investigators at or above the level of Assistant Professor (or equivalent).

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports the acceleration of research with a high potential for direct clinical translation that will result in significant improvements over current approaches to breast cancer prevention and/or therapy.
*Applications will be supported in two stages.  Stage I will enable completion of preclinical translational studies and Food and Drug Administration approvals (if needed).  Stage II will initiate and execute the prospective clinical trial
*Preliminary data are required.
*Preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.

Pre-Application: May 3, 2012
Application: August 15, 2012

Maximum funding of $12M for direct costs (plus indirect costs).
Period of performance not to exceed 5 years.

Era of Hope Scholar Award
Eligibility: Independent, non-mentored investigators within 6 years of their last mentored position as of the application submission deadline.

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports exceptionally talented, creative early-career scientists who have demonstrated that they are the “best and brightest” in their fields.
*Individuals should exhibit strong potential for leadership in the breast cancer community.

Pre-Application (Letter of Intent): April 5, 2012
Confidential Letters of Recommendation: April 19, 2012
Application: April 19, 2012

Maximum funding of $2.5M for direct costs (plus indirect costs).
Period of performance not to exceed 5 years.

Idea Award
Eligibility: Investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent).

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports innovative, high-risk/high-reward research ideas that have extraordinary potential to yield highly impactful data.
*Innovation and Impact are the most important review criteria.
*Preliminary data are allowed, but not required.
*Partnering Principal Investigator (PI) Option supports combining expertise of two PIs to more effectively address a research question.
*Preproposal is required; limit of one preproposal per PI; application submission is by invitation only.

Pre-Application: April 26, 2012
Application: August 15, 2012

Maximum funding of $375K for direct costs (plus indirect costs).
Period of performance not to exceed 2 years.

Impact Award
Eligibility: Investigators at or above the level of Assistant Professor (or equivalent).

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports unique research projects that focus on scientific and clinical breast cancer issues, which, if successfully addressed, could ultimately have a major impact on the understanding, prevention, and/or treatment of breast cancer.

*Preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.

Pre-Application: May 3, 2012
Application: August 15, 2012

Maximum funding of $2M for direct costs (plus indirect costs).
Period of performance not to exceed 5 years.

Innovator Award
Eligibility: Associate Professor or above (or equivalent).

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports visionary individuals who have demonstrated creativity, innovative work, and leadership in any field.
*Provides opportunity to pursue novel, visionary, high-risk ideas that could ultimately lead to the end of breast cancer.
*Nomination is required and self-nominations are accepted; application submission is by invitation only.

Pre-Application (Letter of Intent): May 3, 2012
Confidential Letters of Recommendation: August 2, 2012
Application: August 2, 2012

Maximum funding of $5M for direct costs (plus indirect costs).
Period of performance not to exceed 5 years.

Postdoctoral Fellowship Award
Eligibility: Principal Investigator:  Doctoral graduates (Ph.D. or M.D.).  Clinical investigators are eligible to apply.  Must have no more than 2 years experience in the proposed research setting and no more than 4 years of postdoctoral research experience as of the application deadline.
Mentor or formal co-mentor must have breast cancer research experience, including current funding and publications.

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports the training of exceptionally talented recent doctoral graduates.
*Individualized training program and mentorship should prepare the PI for an independent career at the forefront of breast cancer research.
*Proposed research should address a critical problem in breast cancer research.

Pre-Application (Letter of Intent): April 5, 2012
Confidential Letters of Recommendation: April 19, 2012
Application: April 19, 2012

Maximum funding of $300K for direct costs ($100K per year; plus indirect costs).
Period of performance not to exceed 3 years.

Transformative Vision Award
Eligibility: Independent investigators at any academic level (or equivalent).

Key Mechanism Elements:
*Supports a research effort to realize a vision for dramatically affecting the prevention or treatment of breast cancer as quickly as possible.
*Teams must include consumer advocates who will be integrated into the planning and implementation of the research project.
*Applications with multiple PIs are allowed; however, PIs should have demonstrated experience in successfully leading large, focused projects.
*Preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.

Pre-Application: May 3, 2012
Application: August 15, 2012

Period of performance not to exceed 5 years.
Maximum funding of $12M for direct costs (plus indirect costs).

All applications must conform to the final program announcements and application instructions available for electronic downloading from the Grants.gov website.  The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov.  A listing of all USAMRMC funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420. 

Please review the program announcement for further details:

http://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/bcrp.shtml

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the CDMRP eReceipt website (http://cdmrp.org) prior to the pre-application deadline.  Applications must be submitted through the federal government’s single-entry portal, Grants.gov.  Requests for email notification of the program announcements release may be sent to help@cdmrp.org.  For more information about the BCRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (http://cdmrp.army.mil).