Guest editorial: funding for innovative cancer-relevant technology development

Extraordinary progress has been made in the last several decades in basic and clinical cancer research, but an urgent need persists for better tools that can accelerate our ability to understand and combat cancer.^1,2 It is well-established that innovative technologies accelerate and transform any field for which they are developed, which is why the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) supports the development of innovative technologies for cancer-relevant scientific research and clinical applications through a variety of mechanisms. NCI does this primarily through funding support for grant and contract applications selected through a rigorous peer review process. Several funding opportunities are available from the National Institutes of Health (the parent federal agency of the NCI) for development of novel technologies.† A signature mechanism for providing grant support for early-stage technology development comes from the NCI's Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT) program.‡

Launched in 1998, the IMAT program provides support for development through validation of new technologies that offer significantly new capabilities for molecular and/or cellular analysis and targeting of cancer-relevant biology. The program takes a high-risk/high-reward approach to support early-stage technology development, especially applications with significant merit that likely would not be supported through traditional competitions for biomedical hypothesis-driven research funding. As shown in Fig. 1, the program offers two stages of support depending on the level of maturity of the concept, with a separate track available to small business entities.§ It is important to note that receipt of a first stage award (R21) is not an eligibility requirement for the second stage award (R33). Competitive applications must offer new capabilities for addressing cancer-relevant challenges for which existing tools are clearly insufficient for advancing research, or that otherwise introduce the possibility of opening entirely new areas for research or options for clinical care. A unique requirement of the R21 solicitations is that applications must include quantitative milestones that provide a numerical target of performance or capability for assessing the potential impact the technology might have for either cancer researchers or clinicians. The NCI commits ~$10.5 M, annually, to support approximately 30–40 new projects which promise to enhance cancer researchers' and practitioners' ability to investigate cancer etiology and progression, improve detection capabilities, develop diagnostic methods and treatment strategies, conduct population-scale studies, reduce disparities in clinical care, and assist in clinical decision-making.

Fig. 1 Distribution of grant support for the development of innovative technologies through the IMAT program. Note the R43/R44 awards are only available to small business entities, as defined in the Federal Register, under document #2012-30809.

The IMAT program played a significant role in the early-stage development of well-known technologies such as isotope-coded affinity tagging (ICAT), deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (DXMS), pair-end sequencing, functionalization of quantum dots for biomedical research, Raindance microdroplet sample processing, the ONIX microfluidic perfusion cell toxicity platform from CellASIC and Illumina's BeadChip and BeadStation platforms that served as the precursors to their current family of next-generation sequencing tools. Recently supported technologies cover areas such as novel drug delivery and targeting capabilities,^3,4 sample preparation and preservation,^5–7 clinical point-of-care analysis,^8,9 multi-modal high resolution spectroscopy,^10,11 high-throughput “-omic” screening,^12,13 novel biosensors,^12,14 culture platforms to study mechanical properties of cells,^14–16 and drug screening tools.^17,18 A comprehensive list of all awards supported by the program is available at the program website.¶

The NCI continues to solicit applications that offer novel capabilities and extraordinary potential for any field of cancer-relevant research or for clinical applications through the IMAT program. Applications of particular interest include (but are not restricted to):

• Novel technologies that may aid the elucidation of basic mechanisms underlying cancer initiation and progression (e.g., novel approaches for epigenetic molecular analysis);

• Novel technologies to distinguish, assess, and/or monitor cancer stages and progression (e.g., technologies and tools to measure and identify cancer biomarkers in body fluids and tissues in small sample sizes);

• New methods, tools, and procedures that may generally facilitate processes related to early cancer detection, screening and/or cancer risk assessment (e.g., point-of-care technologies suitable for use in low-resource settings);

• Technologies that can facilitate and/or enhance molecular analyses in cancer epidemiology (e.g., enabling rigorous and/or expeditious collection of various relevant types of data);

• Technologies to facilitate/accelerate the processes of drug discovery or development of approaches to improve drug delivery;

• Technologies to optimize biospecimen collection and preservation to obtain reproducible results in downstream applications including molecular analyses;

• Technologies to assess biospecimen quality to ascertain sufficient integrity of component analytes for analysis;

• Technologies or tools that may help overcome various barriers in research on the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of cancer among members of underserved populations; and

• Technologies to facilitate the collection of relevant biological data for examining the factors contributing to cancer health disparities (e.g., for cancer sub-types and differences across individuals with diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds).

For more information about the program and current funding opportunities, please visit http://innovation.cancer.gov.

References

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14. Y. Weng, F. F. Delgado, S. Son, T. P. Burg, S. C. Wasserman and S. R. Manalis, Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 4174–4180.
15. C. J. Ochs, J. Kasuya, A. Pavesi and R. D. Kamm, Lab Chip, 2014, 14, 459–462.
16. C.-K. Tung, O. Krupa, E. Apaydin, J.-J. Liou, A. Diaz-Santana, B. J. Kim and M. Wu, Lab Chip, 2013, 13, 3876–3885.
17. W. Xiao, F. C. Bononi, J. Townsend, Y. Li, R. Liu and K. S. Lam, Comb. Chem. High Throughput Screening, 2013, 16, 441–448.
18. Y. Zhang, D. J. Shin and T.-H. Wang, Lab Chip, 2013, 13, 4827–4831.

Footnotes

† Current funding opportunities can be found at: http://grants.nih.gov/searchGuide/search_guide_results.cfm?searchTerms=technologies&PAsToo=1&RFAsToo=1&NoticesToo=1&OrderOn=RelDate&OrderDirection=DESC

‡ http://innovation.cancer.gov/

§ As defined in the Federal Register, under document #2012-30809.

¶ http://innovation.cancer.gov/awards/

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