Cancer Target Discovery and Development Network (U01)

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will continue to support the program "Cancer Target Discovery and Development” (CTD^2, pronounced cee-tee-dee-squared).  CTD^2 is focused on efforts that advance cancer research by bridging the knowledge gap between the rapidly increasing volumes of new data generated by comprehensive molecular characterizations of many cancer types and studies of the underlying etiology of cancer development, progression, and/or metastasis.

The primary purpose of the CTD^2 program is to advance our understanding of cancer etiology, mechanisms and treatment through:

• Improving the understanding of how mutations in cancer genes affect the downstream functions (e.g., gain-of-function, loss-of-function, or neomorphic function) within the protein and cellular pathway(s);
• Searching for new molecular targets with the goal to overcome innate and/or acquired resistance to therapies, particularly clinical resistance related to inter- and intra- tumor heterogeneity; and
• Developing efficient strategies to identify appropriate multiple targets and optimal combination of perturbagens (chemical or biological; immunotherapeutics being a prime example of the latter) with the potential to eliminate all cancer cells, despite their clonal heterogeneity.

This FOA solicits applications for research projects  advancing the goals outlined above. The proposed projects should use a combination of state-of-the-art high throughput informatic and experimental approaches to address at a minimum two of these three research areas: (1)  characterization and validation of novel cancer targets; (2) identification of molecular markers that can meaningfully predict responses or resistance to anticancer therapies; and (3) development of perturbagens that can affect the proposed targets of cancer treatment

Application Instructions

Please submit:

1. a one-page letter of intent with a description of proposed aims and approach
2. Biosketch or CV of the PI
3. A letter of support from the Dean or Chair. This letter of support signifies that the Dean or Chair have ensured that the nominee and application are likely to be of sufficient quality to be competitive nationally

to research@uw.edu by 5:00 PM Thursday August 25, 2016. Full proposals are due to the sponsor 10/3/16, so you will need to have your materials in to the Office of Sponsored Programs by 9/23/16 for processing, if given the go ahead by the Proposal Review Committee.