DoD Prostate Cancer, Physician Research Award | W81XWH 20 PCRP PRA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 20 PCRP PRA

The FY20 DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) Physician Research Award (PRA) is designed to give early-career physicians a structured, mentored pathway into a long-term research career focused on prostate cancer. The opportunity is built around two equally weighted goals: supporting a strong, well-justified research project and providing a clear career development plan that helps the physician-investigator gain the skills, publications, and research independence needed to become a productive prostate cancer researcher. The physician applicant is treated as the Principal Investigator (PI) and is expected to write the application themselves, using their mentor or mentors for guidance rather than having the mentor drive the submission.

Eligibility centers on physicians who are actively balancing clinical responsibilities with research training and are still close to the start of their academic careers. Applicants must be either in the final year of an accredited residency or fellowship at the time of submission, or within five years of starting a faculty appointment (including Instructor roles). The program expects applicants to show serious commitment to becoming investigators working at the leading edge of prostate cancer research and clinical practice, but it does not require prior prostate cancer research experience, which makes it particularly relevant for clinicians transitioning into the field.

A core requirement is mentorship. Each application must include at least one designated Mentor who already has an established prostate cancer research program, demonstrated through recent publications, active funding, and a track record of successful mentoring. Beyond credentials, the Mentor(s) must also show real commitment to the PI's professional growth, since the award is meant to function as a launching pad to independence rather than simply labor supporting an existing lab.

On the research side, proposed projects must directly address at least one of the FY20 PCRP Overarching Challenges, meaning the work needs to align with the program's stated priority problem areas rather than being a general prostate cancer study. Applications are expected to present a solid scientific rationale and a thoughtful experimental plan, with clear attention to feasibility, methods, and how goals will realistically be achieved during the performance period. Preliminary data are encouraged but not required, and if included they must come from the PI, Mentor(s), or collaborators. Applicants are also expected to identify the resources needed to complete the project and back up access to those resources with documentation, such as letters of support.

The award also requires an individualized Researcher Development Plan, created with mentor input, that lays out a concrete strategy for building the PI's research capabilities. This plan should explain how the PI will acquire technical skills, subject-matter expertise, and professional competencies (for example, study design, data analysis, grant writing, team science, and responsible research conduct) that both enable completion of the proposed study and prepare the PI to become an independent prostate cancer investigator. The application must describe a mentoring and research environment that fits the project, and it allows gaps at the home institution to be addressed through outside collaborations. If the PI will rely heavily on another institution's resources, the program strongly encourages naming a co-mentor at that partner site to strengthen oversight and training.

Impact is a major review focus. The proposed work must aim to solve one or more of the FY20 Overarching Challenges and should plausibly advance the PCRP mission of reducing deaths from prostate cancer while improving quality of life for Service members, Veterans, and other affected men and families. To strengthen rigor and translational value, applicants are encouraged, when relevant, to include best practices such as authenticating cell lines, applying appropriate statistical rigor in animal studies, and incorporating experiments that test clinical relevance and translatability. The announcement highlights major program-related resources that can increase impact, including the Prostate Cancer Biorepository Network (PCBN) and the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project (PCaP), particularly for projects that depend on banked human specimens or linked clinical data. Applications that plan to use these kinds of repositories or datasets are encouraged to include letters confirming access and availability. The program also welcomes studies that leverage large patient datasets with long-term health records and biospecimens, especially when paired with modern genomic or proteomic approaches, advanced bioinformatics, or mathematical modeling.

Human subjects research is allowed, but the opportunity does not support clinical trials. That said, the program explicitly encourages correlative studies tied to an existing clinical trial, as long as those studies are minimal risk and approved by the appropriate oversight bodies, including the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command human research protections office. Applicants who want to run a clinical trial are directed to a separate PCRP Clinical Trial Award mechanism instead. The announcement also points applicants to recommendations from the Congressionally mandated Metastatic Cancer Task Force and encourages research ideas that respond to those recommendations, as long as they fit within this award's rules and the FY20 PCRP priorities.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, this opportunity was offered by the Department of Defense through the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) under CFDA 12.420, with awards issued as grants or cooperative agreements. The anticipated direct costs for the full performance period are capped at $750,000. The program expected to commit about $6 million total to fund roughly five awards, with final funding dependent on federal appropriations, the volume of submissions, and scientific and programmatic review outcomes. The application deadline for this cycle was June 18, 2020, and awards were expected to be made no later than September 30, 2021, using FY20 funds that were anticipated to remain available for obligation and use within the federal timelines described (with noted expiration for use by September 30, 2026).

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Prostate Cancer, Physician Research Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 18, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 18, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 20 PCRP PRA

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