DoD Pancreatic Cancer, Translational Research Partnership Award | W81XWH 22 PCARP TRPA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 22 PCARP TRPA

The DoD Pancreatic Cancer, Translational Research Partnership Award (FY22 PCARP TRPA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-22-PCARP-TRPA) is a Department of Defense funding opportunity managed by the US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) that is designed to push pancreatic cancer research ideas closer to real-world clinical use. The main purpose is to fund tightly integrated collaborations that can move promising concepts toward applications in prevention, detection, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, or survivorship. The program is explicitly focused on translational work, meaning projects should not stay purely in the lab or purely in the clinic; they should actively connect the two in a way that speeds progress toward patient impact, with relevance to Service Members, Veterans, other military beneficiaries, and the broader public.

A defining requirement of this award is that it must be led by two independent Principal Investigators who function as equal intellectual partners: one must be a research scientist and the other must be a clinician investigator. The partnership is not meant to be superficial or transactional. Applications are expected to show that both investigators had meaningful, roughly equal input into the project design and that the work truly depends on the distinct expertise of each partner. The announcement makes it clear that a project where the clinician only provides patient access or supplies tissue samples does not fit the intent; the clinician partner needs to be engaged in shaping the scientific questions, study design, interpretation, and the translational path forward. While at least one partner must bring expertise in pancreatic cancer research or pancreatic cancer patient care, the program also encourages bringing in experts from outside the pancreatic cancer field, especially when that outside expertise can unlock new approaches. Projects that use convergence science style partnerships, where different disciplines are intentionally integrated to solve a hard problem, are strongly encouraged.

The program emphasizes several core review features. First is Partnership: the collaboration should be essential, with success hinging on the unique skills and contributions of both PIs rather than parallel work that could be done separately. Second is Translation: the proposal should show a reciprocal, two-way flow of ideas and information between basic and clinical science. In practice, that can include correlative studies tied to patient outcomes, use or creation of annotated biorepositories, and analyses that deliberately leverage clinical data to fill knowledge gaps, validate key findings, extend potentially transformative results, or explore new observations arising from patient care. Third is Impact: projects should have credible potential to significantly influence pancreatic cancer research and/or patient care and to accelerate movement of an idea into a clinical application. Fourth is Feasibility: investigators must show they can actually execute the work, including access to needed specimens, datasets, and/or interventions. Finally, Preliminary Data is required: applicants must include relevant published or unpublished results from the PIs or named collaborators, and they must provide data supporting the feasibility of the hypothesis and approach. Importantly, the feasibility data do not have to come from pancreatic cancer specifically; the program recognizes that strong translational ideas can be motivated by laboratory discoveries, population studies, or clinical firsthand observations and anecdotal signals.

In terms of the kinds of studies supported, the award is not positioned to fully fund large-scale clinical trials. Instead, it allows and expects more targeted translational efforts such as retrospective tissue analyses, correlative clinical studies, and small pilot clinical trials. The overall expectation is that a funded team will use the partnership to move faster and more convincingly toward a clinical application than either investigator could accomplish alone, while maintaining continuous feedback between clinical realities and mechanistic or technological development in the lab.

Operationally, the mechanism supports cooperative agreements and grants under CFDA 12.420, with eligibility listed as unrestricted (open broadly to applicant entity types, subject to any specific notes in the full solicitation). The award requires designation of an Initiating PI, who handles most of the administrative submission responsibilities, and a Partnering PI. Even though the Initiating PI coordinates submission, both PIs are expected to contribute substantially to core proposal elements such as the Project Narrative and Statement of Work. If selected for funding, each PI is named on an individual award within the recipient organization, reinforcing the two-PI structure. For multi-institution collaborations, applicants must also include clear interaction plans covering communication, coordination, progress and results sharing, and data transfer, and they must provide an intellectual property plan to proactively resolve potential IP or material transfer issues that could otherwise slow cooperation.

Key administrative details from the posted opportunity include a posting (creation) date of April 25, 2022, an original closing date of October 6, 2022, and an expectation of approximately four awards. The listing shows an award ceiling of 0, which typically indicates that the ceiling is not specified in the summary field and that applicants should rely on the full announcement for budget limits and guidance.

• 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 Pancreatic Cancer, Translational Research Partnership 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 Apr 25, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 06, 2022. (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 4 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 22 PCARP TRPA

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: