ACS Award: RFA

American Cancer Society Individual Research Award
Request for Applications

The Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is requesting applications from junior investigators interested in cancer-related research. Funding for this program is supported by a grant from the American Cancer Society.

Purpose
This program is to make seed funding available to encourage junior investigators to initiate promising new projects in cancer-related research that may enable them to compete successfully for national research grants.

Target Research Areas 
Targeted are projects in basic, clinical, health policy, health services, psychosocial and behavioral, and epidemiologic and control research that seek to answer fundamental questions about the development and nature of cancer; have direct application to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer; relate to health policy or delivery of cancer care; investigate the psychosocial and behavioral impact of cancer; or study the circumstances under which cancer occurs in populations.

Applicant Eligibility Requirements

• Junior investigator who is within six years of his/her first independent faculty appointment. Applicant must be considered eligible to apply as a P.I. for a federal RO1. Research series appointments do not qualify; assistant professor appointments in the adjunct, in residence, professorial, clinical X, and clinical series qualify.
• Salary support and space appropriate for an independent investigator. DEPARTMENT CHAIR SIGNATURE on Face Page ensures that principal investigator has space assigned to him/her as an independent investigator that is adequate to conduct the described research and has salary support during the entire project period.
• Eligible to apply as principal investigator for grant support from national agencies, but does not have such support at present.
• Holders of NIH K awards are eligible to apply.
• Holders of NIH R21, R29, R01, and similar awards are not eligible to apply.
• Postdoctoral fellows are not eligible to apply.
• Previous ACS IRG Individual Research Award awardees are not eligible to apply except current awardees (from last year’s competition) may apply for a 2nd year of support on their projects.
• Preference will be given to the applications that include a letter of support from a senior faculty mentor.

Term of Award
12 months: (02/01/13-1/31/14). Awardees can apply for renewal of their project for a second year.
Note: Other support from national agencies during ACS project period will result in the return of unspent ACS funds.

Award Amount
Up to $30,000. No salary support is allowed for the principal investigator. There are no indirects. No subcontracts are allowed. Applications are not to be sent to Contracts & Grants. See application instructions for detailed information on allowable and unallowable costs.

Award Criteria
The Comprehensive Cancer Center’s ACS Research Award Review Committee will review all proposals. Applications are scored on the basis of originality, scientific merit, potential for development into a proposal to a national agency, and relevance to research areas described above.

Review, Notification, and Period of Award
A PDF of the application (including the completed face page with all signatures) October 15, 2012, at 12:00 noon by email Jordan Brainerd (brainerdj@cc.ucsf.edu).  Applicants will be informed of the committee's selections by January 7.  The award period is 12 months.

Requirements of PI-Awardees

• Submit a two-page progress report and expense activity report within 60 days of the termination of the award.
• Acknowledge support from the ACS in any publications resulting from the award.
• Present the results of the research at a Cancer Center research seminar.
• Provide the Committee with information relating to publications and national grants received as a result of this award for five years following its termination.

Applications can be downloaded from:  http://cancer.ucsf.edu/research/intramural/intramural-acs

Questions can be directed to:  Jordan Brainerd, brainerdj@cc.ucsf.edu, 885-3837