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Defense Health Program Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program Anticipated Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20)

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The FY20 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding to the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) to support innovative, high-impact cancer research.  As directed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Defense Health Agency J9, Research and Development Directorate manages the Defense Health Program (DHP) Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriation.  The managing agent for the anticipated Program Announcements/Funding Opportunities is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC).

The PRCRP is providing the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY20 funding opportunity.  This pre-announcement should not be construed as an obligation by the Government.  The FY20 PRCRP Program Announcements and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanisms will be posted on the Grants.gov website.  Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the Program Announcements are released. 

Congressionally Directed Topic Areas:  The PRCRP appropriation of $110,000,000 will provide funds for research into cancers not addressed in the breast, pancreatic, prostate, ovarian, kidney, lung, melanoma, and rare cancer research programs.  To be considered for funding, applications for the FY20 PRCRP must address at least one of the FY20 PRCRP Topic Areas as directed by Congress.  Research applications in the areas of breast, prostate, lung (excluding mesothelioma), kidney, melanoma, pancreatic, rare cancer, or ovarian cancer will not be accepted. The inclusion of the individual rare cancer research program shall not prohibit the PRCRP from funding the below mentioned cancers or cancer subtypes that may be rare by definition.

The FY2020 PRCRP Topic Areas are:

  • Bladder cancer
  • Blood cancers
  • Brain cancer
  • Colorectal cancer
  • Esophageal cancer
  • Head and neck cancer
  • Immunotherapy
  • Liver cancer
  • Mesothelioma
  • Metastatic cancer
  • Neuroblastoma
  • Pediatric, adolescent, and young adult cancers (PAYAC)
  • Pediatric brain tumors
  • Stomach cancer

The FY20 PRCRP Military Health Focus Areas are listed below:

It is central to the vision and mission of the PRCRP that applications address how the proposed research is related to military health, mission readiness, and the cancer health needs of both deployed and non-deployed military personnel, their dependents, Veterans, and other military beneficiaries (i.e., family members of retirees).  The FY20 PRCRP requires all applications to answer at least one of the following Military Health Focus Areas:

  • Environmental/exposure risk factors associated with cancer
  • Mission Readiness
    • Gaps in cancer prevention, early detection/diagnosis, prognosis, and/or treatment that may affect the general population but have a particularly profound impact on the health and well-being of military Service members, Veterans, and their beneficiaries
    • Gaps in quality of life and/or survivorship that may affect the general population but have a particularly profound impact on the health and well-being of military Service members, Veterans, and their beneficiaries

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) at https://eBRAP.org prior to the pre-application deadline.  All applications must conform to the final Program Announcements and General Application Instructions that will be available for electronic downloading from the Grants.gov website.  The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov.  A listing of all CDMRP and other USAMRDC extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420. 

Submission deadlines are not available until the Program Announcements are released.  For email notification when Program Announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org.  For more information about the PRCRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

Additional information, including proposal and award mechanisms, can be found on the CDMRP site.