Office of Scientific Development

Background

Many scientific projects rely on close collaborations across multiple areas of expertise. Interdisciplinary efforts incorporating diverse expertise often offer opportunities for implementation of novel approaches and bring new perspectives to established problems. However, team projects involving personnel and technical infrastructure shared between laboratories can be difficult to accommodate within research allocations assigned to an individual PI.

The CCR is seeking proposals for the formation of research teams to perform high-impact collaborative research projects relevant to cancer.  Projects may focus on any aspect of cancer research in the basic-translational-clinical spectrum. 

Each team must have at least two Principal Investigators with clearly distinct and/or complementary expertise. If the project involves clinical work, the team needs to include a clinician with the appropriate expertise. The lead PI must be a CCR PI. The inclusion of preliminary data to demonstrate impact and feasibility are recommended. The application must clearly demonstrate the distinctiveness of the proposed work from ongoing studies in the labs of the PIs.

Selection Criteria

Key criteria for evaluation of proposals in this category are below.

• General Considerations: As with all the FLEX Award categories, projects felt to be high impact, i.e., likely to have a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) will be given highest priority.  In addition, the innovation, significance, and approach will also be assessed for each project.  Projects must be relevant to cancer research.

• Award Specific Criteria

Potential impact: Successful projects will lead to ground-breaking new insights into basic, translational and/or clinical research relevant to cancer. This can include, but not limited to, the development of new diagnostic, prognostic, or therapeutic approaches and/or elucidating mechanisms of action, resistance, and treatment-related toxicities.

Synergy: The individual team members must create strong synergy by contributing expertise in complementary areas or methodologies. The proposal must clearly define each team member’s expertise and contribution to the project, along with precise plans for how the team will work together, including the mentoring of trainees. Projects involving clinical work must include a clinician with the appropriate expertise on the team.

Degree of innovation: The resulting research output must be highly innovative and have potential for transformational advance.

Feasibility: The PIs must provide evidence for the feasibility of the proposed studies and demonstrate relevant expertise amongst team-members. The inclusion of preliminary data to demonstrate feasibility is encouraged, but not required.

Critical Information to Include. Does the team of PIs bring the complementary expertise necessary to perform the proposed work? Has each team member’s expertise and contribution to the project been clearly defined? If a clinical study has been proposed, is a clinician with the appropriate expertise included on the team?

Eligibility

Applicants must be a CCR intramural Tenure-track PI, Tenured PI, Senior clinician or Senior scientist in the Center for Cancer Research. Those in the Physician-Scientist Early Investigator (PEI) program can apply but must include a tenured PI as a co-PI. Non-NCI researchers can collaborator on a project or be a co-PI but these individuals cannot receive funds. Please click here for more specifics on who may apply.

Funding

CCR will provide funding for 3 years at a maximum of $375,000 per year. 

Review Process

Review of proposals will occur in two stages. After the review of Letters of Intent (LOI), short-listed applicants (approximately 20% of submitted LOIs) will be invited to submit a full proposal for review.

The CCR Science Board will evaluate LOIs and invited full proposals.