Prioritizing Molecular Targets for Cancer Prevention with Nutritional Combinations (R01) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The grant opportunity titled "Prioritizing Molecular Targets for Cancer Prevention with Nutritional Combinations (R01)" (Funding Opportunity Number PA 10 035) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding announcement led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in partnership with the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS). Its central aim is to push the science beyond the general idea that "diet matters" for cancer prevention and instead nail down how specific bioactive components in foods, and especially combinations of those components or whole foods, interact with biological systems to influence cancer-related outcomes. A key theme is that the field has plenty of evidence linking diet to cancer risk, but still lacks a strong, mechanistic understanding of how multiple dietary compounds work together, which combinations matter most, which molecular pathways they affect, and what targets should be prioritized for future prevention strategies.

The FOA encourages projects that reflect real-world nutrition rather than unrealistic lab exposures. That means studying multiple dietary bioactive components at once, intact foods, or multiple foods, and doing so at physiologically relevant concentrations (levels that people could plausibly reach through diet or supplementation). The announcement highlights that food-derived compounds rarely act in isolation in the body; instead, they interact across complex cellular networks. For that reason, applicants are encouraged to use newer genetic and systems-level approaches to map how dietary components influence interconnected molecular pathways involved in cancer development and progression.

A major priority for this FOA is the application of high-throughput "omics" technologies to identify and rank the most important molecular targets influenced by dietary components. The FOA explicitly calls out genomic, epigenomic, proteomic, and metabolomic approaches as especially desirable tools. In practical terms, the goal is not just to observe that a compound changes something in a cell, but to take a broad and data-rich view that can reveal networks, pathway-level effects, and candidate targets that are most strongly linked to meaningful phenotypic changes tied to cancer prevention.

In terms of biological focus, the FOA lists multiple cancer-relevant sites and processes where dietary components might act. These include carcinogen metabolism (how the body activates or detoxifies carcinogens), DNA repair capacity, regulation of cell proliferation, apoptosis (programmed cell death), cellular differentiation, hormonal regulation, energetics and metabolism, inflammation, and angiogenesis (formation of new blood vessels that can support tumor growth). The announcement also makes an important design expectation clear: applications should either assess multiple molecular targets within a single cancer-related process or evaluate multiple processes at once, with the explicit aim of determining which targets or processes are most responsible for the observed biological or phenotypic effect. In other words, it is not enough to measure one marker; the FOA wants studies that can prioritize what matters most mechanistically.

Another practical driver behind the opportunity is safety and translation. The agencies indicate hope that better mechanistic understanding will help optimize dietary-based cancer prevention strategies while minimizing potential toxicity or unintended effects that could come from certain food components or combinations, particularly when used at higher exposures or in supplement form. The intended output is actionable knowledge about which foods or bioactive components should be considered alone versus in combination when building dietary strategies to reduce cancer risk or potentially modify tumor behavior.

From an administrative standpoint, the mechanism of support is the NIH Research Project Grant (R01), which typically funds hypothesis-driven, investigator-initiated research projects. The FOA states that the number of awards and total funds are contingent on availability of appropriations and the receipt of enough meritorious applications, meaning there is no guaranteed award count. The opportunity falls under NIH assistance listing (CFDA) areas 93.393 (Cancer Cause and Prevention Research) and 93.396 (Cancer Biology Research), and it does not require cost sharing or matching.

Eligibility is broad and includes many organization types: small businesses, public and private institutions of higher education, for-profit organizations (including those other than small businesses), nonprofit organizations (including 501(c)(3) and certain non-501(c)(3) nonprofits), state governments, and other eligible entities listed in the full announcement. The eligibility description also includes U.S. federal agencies, non-U.S. (foreign) organizations, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions, which signals an openness to a wide range of applicants and collaborative structures.

Key dates included in the source information show the FOA was posted and created on November 24, 2009, with an original and current closing date of January 7, 2013, and an archive date of February 7, 2013, meaning it was active during that period and is now archived. The full announcement was historically available through the NIH grants guide (linked in the source), and the contact listed for access or linking issues is the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) webmaster.

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