Although, the aims and goals of the individual projects as well as of the Center as a whole are quite clear, the usual flow of research, especially, with such a broad approach and with the involvement of multiple coordinated groups, will certainly generate some important questions, which have to answered for the success of the whole project, but were not addressed in the aims of the initial individual projects. In such cases, we will initiate specific short term (from 6 months to a year) Pilot Projects to be performed within one of Center's component on a competitive basis, since this will be involving an additional funding. The need for such projects should be cleariy established by discussing the needs of the Center by the Internal Executive Committee with the assistance of the External Advisory Board. As soon as the need for such Pilot Project is cleariy established, all individual project leaders will be informed about such a need and given with short but sufficient time (from 2 to 4 weeks) to submit their proposal (2-to-3 pages long) and appropriate budgets. Within the next two weeks the decision will be made by the Executive Committee together with the Advisory Board and the best proposal will be funded from a set aside funds (as requested by the NCI). Hypothetical examples of such Pilot Proiects mav include: ? Development and testing new type of a nanocarrier if the initially selected one does not meet the initial expectation; ? Development and testing a novel loading procedure if the initially used one provides less than optimal drug load; ? Testing of a certain nanopreparation in another animal model than initially suggested, if the initially suggested one does not perform good enough for whatever reason; ? Need to develop any alternative approach based on the data from Nanocharacterization and/or Imaging Cores; ? Need to make an additional research, which can arise from any recent literature data to adjust Center's projects according to newly available scientific information. Such Pilot Project can also serve as a mechanism to involve new junior scientists from the host institutions in the Center's activities. Trans-Alliance activities (Challenge projects). One can easily foresee that actively working CCNE will be generating new knowledge and ideas, the full scale use and/or implementation of which will not be entirely possible within the frame of the host CCNE. Natural development in this case is the creation of working connections and joint projects between different CCNEs to address such issues and respond the arising need fast and effectively. Clearly, in this case all CCNEs should about the unique capabilities of their peers to help with be infonned choosing a proper partner. This type of the information should be disseminated via the corresponding Bioinformatics Units or Cores. The unique capabilities of the future Center for Translational Cancer Nanomedicine suggested by us include: 1. Excellent facilities and broad experience of our Imaging Core (see the detailed Core description in the Center Organization Section as well as in the specific Imaging Core description), which could be used for various joint projects; 2. The involvement of the GMP Scaling Up and Manufacturing facility (see the detailed Core description in the Center Organization Section as well as in the specific Manufacturing Core description), which can be used for various joint projects if other CCNEs will need to test the possibilities of industrial scaling up and manufacturing of their drug candidates. Thus, the proposed Center for Translational Cancer Nanomedicine will be capable of Trans-Alliance collaboration on the study of the biological behavior of various nanomedicines by using a cutting edge imaging technologies, on the development of novel imaging agents for cancer, and on the development of industrial production schemes for a broad set of various nanomedicines with good clinical promise.
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