Developmental Funds

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Abstract Developmental Funds (DF) The overall goal of the Developmental Funds of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center (COHCCC) is to stimulate innovative early-stage research that addresses cancer prevention, diagnostics, treatment or health disparities. Developmental Funds awards provide COHCCC investigators with seed money for generating preliminary data and/or support for multi-project grant applications, enabling them to successfully apply for independent peer-reviewed funding. Developmental Funds also support clinical Early-Stage Investigators (ESI) by granting them additional protected time for developing their first NCI grant or investigator-initiated clinical trial. We foster diversity in our research teams by specifically providing pilot awards to investigators from groups that are underrepresented in biomedical research. We also aspire to improve diversity of the patients enrolled in our clinical trials by supporting clinical ESI for developing trials that will increase accrual of patient URGs and/or to be conducted at our clinical network sites. In addition to mechanism-specific eligibility, awards prioritize inter- program and multi-disciplinary collaborations, as well as alignment with COHCCC strategic priorities. Developmental Funds stimulate the production of high-quality research proposals via the following Specific Aims: Aim 1. Support innovative pilot projects from diverse investigators and multi-disciplinary teams Aim 2. Provide protected research time for early-career physician scientists with Clinical ESI Awards Dr. Larry Kwak, as COHCCC Deputy Director, oversees Developmental Funds, providing strategic direction and overall leadership and ensuring that Developmental Funds activities leverage opportunities across the COH enterprise. While Dr. Kwak oversees the scientific aspects of Developmental Funds, the Associate Director of Administration, Ashley Baker Lee, is responsible for managing the awards in keeping with NCI guidelines and best practices, including announcements, scientific review facilitation, pre/post award management and impact metrics through the COHCCC Administration. The scientific merit and mission alignment of award applications will be evaluated by the Scientific Review Committee, with standing members consisting of Drs. Kwak and Rosen, a biostatistician, one member from each COHCCC Program, and at least one basic, one translational and one clinical scientist. Funding decisions will be made by majority vote and ranking of proposals, with borderline cases decided by Drs. Rosen and Kwak. In the current funding cycle (2017-2021), CCSG funds supported the development of a new SR, now a full SR, known as the Population-Facing Research Shared Resource (PFR-SR) that is widely used by Cancer Center members. PFR-SR facilitated 21 NIH grants (7 multi-PI) and PFR-SR services generated 36 publications. COHCCC also distributed 4 Team Science Awards that resulted in the submission of 2 NCI SPORE and 2 NCI Program Project applications as well as separate R01s for many of the individual projects. Four R01 grants have been awarded with a return on investment of 20-fold thus far.