The purpose of the Developmental Research Program (DRP) is to fund promising projects by investigators whose current work may not focus exclusively on ovarian cancer, but who propose highly innovative translational studies of ovarian cancer that could become full SPORE projects or compete successfully for funding outside of the SPORE. The DRP provides a unique venue for making available significant financial support, and for demonstrating active institutional support, through a program that is rapidly responsive to new ideas or initiatives. Moreover, this program is rooted in a spirit of collaboration espoused by the SPORE investigators, who have an extensive track-record of bringing investigators from other disciplines into ovarian cancer research. The strength of the DRP rests in its ability to make available financial support needed to access all the critical expertise and resources within the entire SPORE. This will allow us to develop collaborative, multi-investigator, multi-institutional research projects with the support of innovative, investigator-initiated projects that have the potential to flourish into reliable and productive translational research projects that make a path from basic and/or population research projects into research focused on human clinical specimens/patient populations. Over the course of the previously-funded Ovarian SPORE grants since 2000, we have supported 48 DRPs. Overall, 14 former recipients of DRPs have received peer-reviewed funding in ovarian cancer as PI, Co- PI or Co-Investigator with eight as PIs (three DOD, two R01, one R21, one R03 and two CPRIT). Two recipients have been awarded OCRF funds (one Multi-Investigator Award and one Liz Tilberis Scholar). More recently, four recipients have been awarded six peer-reviewed ovarian cancer grants as PI (three R01, one R21, two CPRIT) and one Liz Tilberis Scholar award from the OCRF. Overall, recipients have published 281 peer-reviewed publications regarding ovarian cancer (38 specific to their DRP project) since receiving a DRP award. Additionally, six former awardees have participated in full SPORE projects after completing a DRP project.
Developmental Research Program NARRATIVE The Developmental Research Program (DRP) will support innovative and scientifically- sound projects that investigate questions pertaining to translational research in ovarian cancer. This program will allow us to recruit new investigators into the ovarian cancer research community and identify potential full projects for the Ovarian Cancer SPORE.
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