Alliance Challenge Projects

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N6. Developmental Activities (Plans for Pilot Projects, Alliance Challenge Projects, and Other Trans-Alliance Activities). A summary of key scientific and translational capabilities that our CCNE-T can provide in support of Developmental Activities is given next. The proposed CCNE-T is more than capable of developing and sustaining the various Developmental Activities for the following four-fold reasons: 1) Experience: We have been successfully running CCNE-TR sponsored Developmental (Pilot) Projects in our existing Center since 2006 until now, thus, we have already accumulated significant know-how and experience regarding how to initiate and maintain these types of Developmental Projects. Our Center administration team and the Executive Committee (EC) members are highly skilled in this regard. Leveraging on this accumulated experience and skills, we plan to continue these proven-successful processes for selection, evaluation and initiation of these Pilot Projects. 2) Environment: The research and educational environments both at Stanford, and also at our collaborating partner institutions, are exceptionally good and readily available. Highly specialized expertise in both the cancer and nanotechnology arenas can be harnessed that is of outstanding quality, therefore, we expect to continue seeing great enthusiasm from the various research groups on campus to be part of the Center. This appeal has been leading directly into the funding of 3-4 Pilot Projects per year. We typically receive >15 pre-proposal submissions in each year. 3) Investment: Stanford University has made significant investments in several key areas that directly impact this research proposal. For a decade now, Stanford University has strongly believed that its strengths in the Schools of Medicine, Engineering, and Humanities & Sciences need to be leveraged towards advancing Biomedical Sciences. It is for this reason that President Hennessey, the Deans of Medicine (Pizzo), Engineering (Plummer), and of Humanities and Sciences (Sailer) are all enthusiastic supporters of this proposal (see Letters of Support at the end of this section). As part of the institutional commitment to this interdisciplinary approach to the Biosciences, a key effort known as the Bio-X Program was established and a new building of 225,000 square feet known as the James H. Clark Center was constructed. This was an investment of over $175 million in construction costs and infrastructure that brings together scientists from many disciplines including Chemistry, Applied Physics, Bioengineering, Computer Science, Developmental Biology, Molecular Pharmacology, Medicine, Surgery, and Radiology. All the Bio-X Program Scientists share a common goal to advance Biomedical Science. This proposal will tremendously benefit from the environment at Stanford and the Bio-X that fosters highly multidisciplinary efforts. Dr. Carla Shatz (lAB of CCNE-T) who is the Director of the Bio-X Program, and Dr. Ann Arvin (lAB of CCNE-T) who is the Vice Provost and Dean of Research overseeing the Bio-X Program, are highly supportive of this proposal as it is the exact type of collaborative effort that the Bio-X would like to foster (see lAB Support Letters). These Stanford committed resources, from new infrastructure expansion and support of new faculty billets for nanotechnology and cancer, will provide outstanding support and major enablers for success in multidisciplinary efforts such as the existing CCNE-TR and the newly proposed continuation center CCNE-T. 4) Investigator Activity: Our investigators are highly active in the cancer nanotechnology community. For example, Dr. Sam Gambhir serves as a Scientific Advisory Board Member to NCI; Dr. David Paik is currently one ofthe leaders in the NCI Alliance's caNano Lab and caBIG programs; and Dr. Shan Wang organizes the Alliance's in vitro Diagnostics Working Group and also serves as the Chair of the relevant NCI Cancer Nano Alliance investigator meeting. Most of our investigators have already interacted with other CCNEs and CNPPs (Cancer Nanotechnology Partnership Programs) as indicated in Appendix 13 and in section N1.4.10. We will continue our efforts to increase collaborations and also to accelerate the realization of our promising cancer nanotechnology tools as clinical aids in the fight against cancer. We strongly believe that for all of the reasons as outlined above, we can guarantee the continuation, new formation, and progression of our Developmental Activities, Alliance Challenge Projects, and other Alliance Activities. We plan to accomplish these activities as described in the following sections.