Developmental funds have played a key role in facilitating scientific growth and increased interdisciplinary collaboration at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center (MCC) during the current funding period. Over the current funding cycle, $80,899 per year was awarded and expended on one new faculty recruitment, one pilot project per year, and support of the development of a Behavioral Measurement Shared Resource (BeMSR), which is being put forth as a competing shared resource as part of this renewal application. We are requesting $295,000 per year of CCSG support for our development program to recruit six new investigators over five years as part of planned expansions of Center programs, to fund up to three pilot projects per year, and to support the development of three new shared resource facilities. The faculty recruit supported by CCSG funds during the current funding period has already received support from NCI. MCC and institutional resources also provided support in the recruitment of 23 additional faculty members to VCU and MCC. Of these, eight have received new NCI funding (35%) with $6.8 M (direct costs, all years) and an additional $6.5 M (total direct costs, all years) in NIH and other extramural funding. Faculty positions and space for recruitment priorities for the next five years have been Identified. While the requested CCSG funds will be more than matched with MCC and institutional funds to accomplish these planned recruitments, pilot projects, and shared cores, the CCSG funds provide critical leverage to obtain matching funds from other institutional sources. Our pilot research project program received a total of 26 applications for the two most recent rounds of funding in 2010. Of these, 13 (50%) were awarded. Over the current funding period, a total of 63 applications were received for review, with a total of 27 (43%) approved for funding with 28.6% awarded in 2008-2009 resulting in extramural funding. The requested increase in CCSG funding will allow us to fund more of these key applications. Member surveys and Program discussions identified specific scientific member needs in the areas of lipidomics, high throughput sequencing, and imaging services. Once the need for each resource was agreed upon and endorsed by Dr Ginder, the identification of space, the acquisition of equipment, and the identification of potential directors was undertaken. Institutional commitment has also been secured to include the personnel required to launch the proposed activities.
Developmental funds provided through the Cancer Center Support Grant insure essential resources are available to VCU Massey Cancer Center researchers to aid in programmatic development and scientific growth. These funds provide a basis to build interdisciplinary collaborations and foster new discoveries in cancer research.
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