The Career Development Award has been given annually to young investigators to pursue research, which complements the disciplines emphasized by the Duke SPORE. Our first recipient was Dr. Andrew Futreal who was recruited to Duke to help us build a program in breast cancer genetics. Dr. Futreal and his collaborators succeeded in identifying BRCA2 during his tenure as the Career Award recipient and he used the resources made possible by the SPORE to make several important discoveries during our first year. In the second year, we supported Dr. Fan Fuan who represents an entirely different discipline. Dr. Yuan was recruited to Duke in the School of Engineering. He works on quantitative approaches to study drug distribution and pharmacology. He is interested in angiogenesis, vascular and tissue permeability and drug delivery. During his first year at Duke, he published several important studies and collaborated with several investigators in the SPORE. Rather than uses a cumbersome and inefficient system to recruit and select Award recipients, we have proposed a streamlined system of open nominations and selection by the Executive Committee. This year (year 3) we will support a cancer molecular biologist who has worked as a junior faculty member within the genetic testing core resource of the SPORE and designed our system of mutation screening BRCA1 and BRCA2. In years four and five, we propose to reduce the support offered to $25,000 per year to the legatee. This reduction is justified for the last two years, covered by this application for supplemental funding, in several ways: 1.) Resources are needed to finish the research started by major Projects within the SPORE and covered by a reduced budget, 2.) The competitive renewal process will begin in year four and 3.) We have supported six young faculty during the past three years using the SPORE and Planning Grant.
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