Stanford CCNE-TD call for proposals

**Internal funding opportunities for Stanford faculty with UTL, MCL, NTLR and CE faculty appointments. Postdoctoral Fellows, Academic staff-research (i.e., basic research scientists, research associates), Clinical Instructors, and Instructors (clinical and non-clinical) are eligible as co-PI**

Stanford Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and Translational Diagnostics (CCNE-TD)

Developmental Projects (RFP-CCNE-DP-CX)

Deadline: Friday, August 13, 2021, 5 p.m. (see "Submitting an Application" below)

Amount of Funding/Budget Information:

• Developmental Projects: $50,000 total costs for 1 year. [Although it is strongly discouraged, under exceptional circumstances and with a strong demonstrated potential to external funding within 1 year of CCNE-TD support, the Center may fund Developmental Projects at up to $100,000 level]. Up to 5 Developmental Projects will be selected for funding. 

Once all required documents are received, the selected candidates will have a funding period from 9/1/2021 – 8/31/2022.

Eligibility:

• This solicitation is open to faculty with PI eligibility (those with University-tenure Line (UTL), Medical Center Line (MCL), or Non-tenure Line Research faculty appointments) and Clinician Educator line (CE) faculty. (Note: CE faculty PI waivers are not required for internal funding opportunities.)
• Postdoctoral scholars, Academic staff-research (i.e., basic research scientists, research associates), Clinical Instructors, and Instructors (clinical and non-clinical) are eligible as co-PI with a faculty PI.
• The funds cannot solely be used for career development or personnel expenses. Equipment only requests are also not suitable. 
• Since the Center is interested in introducing new capabilities to the Stanford CCNE Program to organize a P01 Program Grant in the next two years, preference will be given to those investigators who are either currently involved with CCNE-TD or have relevant research in the vicinity of cancer nanotechnology or other innovative technologies.   All applications, regardless of relationship to CCNE-TD, will undergo the same level of scrutiny before being identified as an appropriate Developmental Project.

Purpose

The Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and Translational Diagnostics (CCNE-TD), an NIH-NCI funded Phase-III U54 grant (PI: J. Rao, PhD, co-PI: S.X. Wang, PhD), is soliciting proposals for Developmental Projects of Cancer Nanotechnology research.

The purpose of Developmental Projects (RFP-CCNE-DP-C1) is to support mature or maturing Cancer Nanotechnology projects with established teams. It is expected that these proposals will have significant preliminary data relevant to the proposal. Ideally, the Center seeks Developmental Project proposals that are at or near pre-clinical stage and more in clinical translation nature but not early explorations. These projects should show strong promise to lead into R01/P01 type NIH support within 1 year of CCNE-TD funding.

Potential Application Technical Areas:

Although there is no limit on the application technical areas, the Center is particularly interested in the following broad categories:

• Immunotherapy/target therapy with nanotechnology delivery or novel management approaches
• Nano-based/enabled In Vivo Imaging Instrumentation/Sensing, Intraoperative Surgical Guidance/Theranostics for Cancer
• Novel Nano-based/enabled Imaging Contrast Agents/Mechanisms that are biocompatible or minimally toxic (e.g. new types of nanoparticles with photoacoustic, ultrasound, Raman, optical, electrical, magnetic contrast)
• In vitro Nanodiagnostics: Point-of-Care (POC) Diagnostics with cost <$25/assay, Specificity >90%, multiplexing capable.
• Theranostic Strategies/Platforms (e.g. combined Nanoimaging + Photothermal/dynamic Therapy or Nano/Micro Devices for Selection of Therapy)
• Wearable Devices, Non-Invasive Sensing with Nano/Micron scale components
• Cancer focused non-invasive nanosensors (e.g. multiplexing capable salivary diagnostics, breath/gas analyzers, electronic tongues, tear/urine/stool interrogating sensors),
• Implantable/Inhalable/Swallowable Nanomedical Diagnostic/Imaging Technologies, 
• Biological Barrier Crossing Nanoparticles or Nano Strategies (e.g. Blood-Brain-Barrier Crossing Nanoparticles, Mucus Penetrating Nanoparticles), 
• Active (non-EPR based) or Magnetically Guided Nanoparticle Targeting/Delivery, 
• Novel Types of genetic or non-genetic Secreted but Source Traceable Reporters (e.g. barcoded nano-reporters, xenoreporters), 
• Magnetic or E-Field-Mediated/Enabled Reporters/ Portable Imaging Platforms that have Nano/Micro components.
• Novel Single Cell Enrichment, Detection, Comprehensive Analysis Platforms
• µTotal Analysis Systems (µTAS) that can integrate more than 2 different types of analytes (e.g. nucleic acid+protein+chemical or DNA+RNA+protein or chemical+electrical+physical)
• Devices/Technologies/Approaches for continuous monitoring of health and deviation from it that utilize integrated nano/micro sensors/technologies that are available cheaply off-the-shelf.
• Medically Relevant Intracellular Electronic Sensing or Nanorobotics (e.g. synthetic/biohybrid approaches for detection and repair of DNA damage or phenotypic/genotypic reversion of oncogenic signal transduction, externally trigger-able multifunctional nanoparticles/devices with diagnostic or theranostic potential)
• Computational Predictive or Modeling Strategies/Tools for better Assessment of Nanoparticle In Vivo Behavior in Pre-Clinical Settings
• Big Data Analytics relevant to Cancer Nanomedicine (e.g. Cancer Nanomedicine Knowledge Mining, Automated Extraction and Data Warehousing of Nanoparticle-Biology Interactions, Correlation of Physiochemical Properties of Nanoparticles with Biological Response to them, Prediction of Hemodynamics of nano particles)
• Fundamental Knowledge Generation: novel discovery investigations that occur in cancer biology and/or nanotechnology that utilize the nanoscale phenomena.

The vision of Stanford CCNE Program is to bring together researchers from different disciplines to form synergistic teams that can make significant advances in developing and validating nanotechnology that will impact cancer diagnosis, therapy and management.  Projects will mainly include those that have a high potential for linking nanotechnology to diagnostic/theranostic devices or therapeutic interventions, nano-based or nano-enabled imaging or to pre-clinical imaging models for improved cancer medical management.  

The Center’s focus areas have been in Cancer Early Detection and Therapy Response Monitoring, but we are looking to expand into exciting new areas. Nanoengineering-based/enabled fundamental cancer-related knowledge generation or medical interventions at the intersection of health and early cancer development stages are highly interesting to the Center’s research missions. The Center is not tasked with merely cancer therapeutics or experimental drugs alone, non-novel uses/combinations of existing nanoparticle imaging strategies and monotypic biological/biomarker discovery and/or validation studies, thus, these types of proposals are not suitable for this solicitation. 

Contact/Questions?

Applicants are welcome to discuss their research plans in response to this solicitation with Dr. Jianghong Rao and/or Dr. Shan Wang (jrao@stanford.edu, sxwang@stanford.edu ).

If selected and funded

Funding is contingent upon receipt of all required documents and protocols, hence, verification of approved protocols must be submitted before receiving funds. An interim and yearly progress report in NIH format will also be due upon completion of the project.  The due dates will be provided upon selection of applicants.  

SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

By Friday, August 13, 2021, 5 p.m. please submit one PDF file containing the following in the order listed below (1-6) via email to:

npacheco@stanford.edu

Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence

File name: Last name_CCNE-TD_dev_projects.pdf 

Institutional representatives: not applicable for internal funding opportunities. You do not have to submit your applications through your RPM in RMG or through OSR.

1) Title Page:

Name, title, and position of the PI, Co-PI(s) and Co-Investigators

2) Research Proposal: 

Format: 2-5-single spaced pages with, Arial/Calibri 11 point font, 0.5 inch margins, including illustrations. References are not included in the page limits. The entire submission should be a single pdf/MS-word file.

Proposal Content: A description of proposed research, including the following: 

a. Filled out form pages from #1 above

b. Research plan 

b1. Research Summary, 

b2. Hypothes(i/e)s, 

b3. Novelty, 

b4. Impact, 

b5. Approach, 

b6. Expected Results, 

b7. Challenges/Why Project may fail, 

b8. Plans for External Funding or Evidence of Previous NIH or Foundation Proposal Submission(s) that are un-funded using the same approach

c. A brief description of the team members and the interdisciplinary characteristics of this project. 

3) Detailed budgets

For up to $50K (total direct cost and no indirect costs can be charged). 

Estimated budget periods:  

9/1/21-8/31/2022 (Developmental Project, 12-month operation period) 

Please note:  you do not have to have your RPM prepare your budget. An informal but NIH style descriptive budget prepared by the PI will suffice.

4) Budget Justification (1 page, NIH format)

5) Biosketch (NIH format) for the PI and Co-PI(s) and Co-Investigators

6) Other Support (also NIH format). Please include both active and pending support.