The Career Enhancement Program (CEP) will support early career breast cancer researchers, who have research concepts focused on the biology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer. The purpose of the CEP is to help develop the careers of young investigators committed to breast cancer, and our goal is that these funds will support the awardees? efforts to become independent researchers. The Breast SPORE will designate a minimum of $200,000 a year to the CEP, $75,000 from SPORE funds and at least $125,000 from institutional commitment. The CEP is focused on young investigators at a junior faculty level. More senior individuals who wish to change their research focus to breast cancer are encouraged to apply for the SPORE Developmental Research Program awards, not the CEP, unless they are eligible for the Special Minority Career Advancement Award. All applicants for the CEP Awards will be required to have a faculty appointment at a Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) institution participating in the SPORE; individuals in a post-doctoral fellowship program may apply if their Department Chair will guarantee a faculty appointment year should the applicant receive a CEP award. Applicants need to have a nominating letter from a faculty mentor, which must detail the mentoring plan, preferably including a mentoring committee with breast cancer expertise represented. Because of the need to identify and develop breast cancer researchers from underrepresented backgrounds, we have prioritized recruitment of minorities to our CEP awards and have also created a special award exclusively for underrepresented minority candidates. The annual Request for Applications will be announced by e-mail, posted throughout the DF/HCC institutions via message boards and featured on the DF/HCC, SPORE and Harvard Catalyst websites. The announcement will describe the purpose of the award, provide instructions for applicants, and detail the review criteria. The requirements for mentors, review criteria and steps to monitor progress are described in this section.
The CEP awards will support research projects proposed by individuals who are junior faculty members (instructor or assistant professor) or about to join the faculty. The CEP will promote the careers of junior investigators who have significant potential to contribute to breast cancer research. Since progress in breast cancer research is largely dependent on developing the next generation of breast cancer translational researchers, these awards are of considerable importance to establish a career in breast cancer research. Additionally, these projects may lead to more mature research projects whose aims are the prevention, early diagnosis or treatment of breast cancer.
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