DoD Breast Cancer, Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium Award | HT9425 23 BCRP TBCCA 2

Opportunity Information: Apply for HT9425 23 BCRP TBCCA 2

The DoD Breast Cancer, Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium Award (FY23) is a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program funding opportunity meant to back large, tightly coordinated research consortia whose work can genuinely change outcomes for people living with breast cancer or those at increased risk. The core idea is not incremental progress or another collection of related projects, but a deliberate push toward brand-new, paradigm-shifting approaches that accelerate progress toward the mission of ending breast cancer. A key point in the announcement is that the "transformation" being sought should be visible in peoples lives, rather than framed as improvements to the healthcare or research system itself.

This mechanism is structured around a team-based consortium model led by a Consortium Director and built from at least four and no more than five project teams. Each team has its own Principal Investigator, but the teams cannot operate as stand-alone projects; their work must be substantively integrated and jointly aimed at a single central hypothesis. There are also limits intended to enforce true multi-institutional collaboration: no more than two project teams may be based at any one institution. The program emphasizes that the consortium should function as an integrated scientific enterprise where each component is necessary to resolve the shared overarching problem, rather than resembling a loose bundle of subprojects.

The scientific expectations are intentionally high-risk and high-impact. Applications are expected to propose truly innovative, new, and potentially paradigm-shifting breast cancer research that addresses a vital problem in a unique way. Projects may focus on one or more of the FY23 BCRP Overarching Challenges, or they may propose a different fundamental issue, as long as the applicant justifies how it fits the award intent and pairs it with at least one FY23 Overarching Challenge. The research is also expected to be multidisciplinary and to use an ecologic approach, meaning the consortium should consider breast cancer across relevant scales and influences (for example, spanning biology, environment, behavior, risk, prevention, detection, and treatment where appropriate) and unite these perspectives into one coherent strategy that digs deeply into unresolved questions tied to the central hypothesis.

A major review and design requirement is detailed, substantive integration across the consortium. The application must go beyond simply listing meetings, governance structures, communication plans, or administrative management. Instead, it needs to explain how the science itself will be integrated: what shared methods, platforms, data streams, analytic pipelines, or iterative feedback loops will connect the teams, and how discoveries from one team will shape and accelerate the work of the others. The intent is to fund synergistic, highly integrated collaborations of leading scientists, clinicians, and consumer advocates who together can tackle a major breast cancer problem in a way that no single lab or conventional collaboration could accomplish.

The award also sets aside support for "seed projects" during the performance period. These are meant to fund brand new, high-risk/high-reward ideas that emerge from the consortiums ongoing work, allowing the group to pursue promising directions quickly rather than waiting for a future grant cycle. While phase 1 clinical trials and partnerships with pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies are allowed when appropriate, a clinical trial is not required, and the application should not be built primarily as a clinical trial proposal.

Administratively, this opportunity was issued by the Department of Defense (USAMRAA) under CFDA 12.420 as a discretionary grant/cooperative agreement program. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open to any entity type, subject to any clarifications in the full announcement). The FY23 posting shows an expected single award. The original opportunity details list a creation date of May 2, 2023, and an original closing date of September 26, 2023, with an award ceiling not specified in the provided summary.

Finally, the program distinguishes this full Consortium Award from a separate FY23 Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium Development Award mechanism. The development award is intended to help groups assemble a consortium framework and generate preliminary work for a later full consortium application, but receiving a development award is not required to apply for the full consortium award. For FY23 specifically, an investigator may serve as Consortium Director on either the Development Award application or the full Consortium Award application, but not both.

• 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 Breast Cancer, Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium 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 May 02, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 26, 2023. (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 1 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 HT9425 23 BCRP TBCCA 2

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