DoD Prostate Cancer Exploration Hypothesis Development Award | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) Exploration Hypothesis Development Award is a grant opportunity run through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) that is meant to push early, high-risk prostate cancer ideas forward. The program is specifically built for projects that are highly innovative, largely untested, and potentially high gain, where the main goal is to open up new directions rather than to incrementally extend an already established line of work. Since the mechanism began in FY2003, it has attracted heavy interest (1,814 applications) with a smaller subset ultimately recommended for funding (209), which highlights that it is competitive and geared toward proposals that truly break new ground.

At its core, this award supports exploratory studies that can generate a scientific rationale for a brand-new hypothesis or provide an initial proof of principle for an unconventional hypothesis. It is also designed to let investigators follow up on unexpected or “serendipitous” observations that could reveal entirely new avenues for prostate cancer research. A key point in the announcement is that providing preliminary data runs against the spirit of the mechanism and is strongly discouraged. Instead, applicants are expected to make a persuasive case using clear logical reasoning and a sound scientific rationale, explaining why the idea is important, why it could work, and what kind of early evidence the project would realistically be able to produce within the scope of an exploratory award.

The PCRP invites a broad range of prostate cancer research approaches, including basic science, population science, translational research, and clinical research, as long as the project addresses a meaningful prostate cancer problem. Applicants are expected to align their project with at least one PCRP focus area and are strongly encouraged to address one of the program’s overarching challenges. If a proposal does not directly address an overarching challenge, the application is expected to clearly justify how the work still targets a critical need in prostate cancer research and/or patient care. In other words, even unconventional ideas must be anchored to a real gap or bottleneck in the field.

Human subjects research is allowed and even encouraged, but the opportunity explicitly restricts work to studies that do not include clinical trials. Correlative studies tied to an existing clinical trial can be permitted, but only if they are judged to be no greater than minimal risk by both the local Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Office of Research Protections (specifically the Human Research Protection Office). For projects involving human subjects or specimens, the work must qualify as exempt under 32 CFR 219.101(b) or be eligible for expedited review under the relevant federal regulations (32 CFR 219.110 or 21 CFR 56.110). The announcement points applicants to federal guidance and program resources for definitions and compliance expectations around human subjects, clinical research, and what counts as a clinical trial.

To strengthen feasibility and accelerate discovery, applicants are encouraged to leverage established PCRP-supported resources when appropriate, particularly for studies using retrospectively collected human specimens or linked data. Two highlighted resources are the Prostate Cancer Biorepository Network (PCBN) and the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project (PCaP). The intent is to help researchers access well-characterized materials and datasets rather than spending the limited exploratory window building a collection from scratch, when existing resources could meet the need.

The program also emphasizes data sharing and community benefit. CDMRP indicates that data and research resources produced with these awards are intended to be made available to the broader research community (including consumer advocacy communities) and the public, consistent with the program’s data sharing expectations described in the general application instructions. Practically, this signals that applicants should plan for responsible dissemination of datasets, tools, or other resources created during the project, rather than keeping outputs closed or only locally available.

Administratively, the funding opportunity number is W81XWH-13-PCRP-EHDA, and the agency is the Department of the Army (USAMRAA) under the Military Medical Research and Development CFDA listing (12.420). The mechanism is offered as a grant/cooperative agreement under the science and technology R and D category. For this posted cycle, the total estimated funding was $3,000,000 with an expected 25 awards, no cost sharing requirement, and eligibility described as unrestricted (open to any entity type, subject to any clarifications in the full text). The opportunity was posted June 15, 2013, with a closing date of July 31, 2013, and archived August 30, 2013, which places this specific announcement in the FY13 funding cycle.

Browse more opportunities from the same agency: Dept. of the Army USAMRAA

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Next opportunity: DoD Prostate Cancer Dr. Barbara Terry Koroma Health Disparity Research Award

Previous opportunity: DoD Prostate Cancer Collaborative Undergraduate HBCU Student Summer Training Program Award

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