Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) Sponsored Funding
A. David Mazzone Research Awards Program
Lupron-Treatable Disease and Conditions Award

Sponsor: Non-federal (DFCI)
Award Amount: Up to $50,000 per year for two years for direct costs only ($100,000 total).

One page Letter of Intent due by March 5, 2012. Submit letter online: Application Form Web Page
Application deadline: 04:59:59 PM EST, Friday, April 6, 2012
Funding decisions will be made through peer review by June 15, 2012
Anticipated award date: July 1, 2012
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SUBMISSION INFORMATION

Submission requirements: Applications must be submitted online: Application Form Web Page
Applications submitted using other means will not be reviewed or considered for this award. Applicants should notify their grant administrator/office and follow their institution’s policies and procedures for approval to submit applications. Applications will not be accepted after 04:59:59 PM EST, Friday, April 6, 2012.

Please direct questions to:
Juan Carlos Hincapie
Tel: (617) 632-6155
Email: mazzoneawards@partners.org

OVERVIEW
The A. David Mazzone Research Awards Program will fund a series of collaborative and innovative cancer research, career development, community outreach, and training projects to address a range of needs in prostate cancer and Lupron-treatable diseases.

Lupron-Treatable Disease and Conditions Awards will support investigators who are focused on non Prostate Cancer diseases and conditions that are Lupron-treatable, including but not limited to endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and precocious (early-onset) puberty in both male and female children. Projects may focus on lab and translational research to examine innovative treatment alternatives. Examples of disciplines relevant to this RFA include any aspect of prevention (health promotion, modifiable risk factors, behavioral research, and behavioral intervention trials), epidemiology (classic, genetic, molecular), biostatistics, human cancer genetics, human nutrition, health services and health policy research, medical decision analysis, survivorship and quality of life; and basic and applied research in the behavioral sciences that independently or in combination with biomedical approaches, reduces disease risk, incidence, morbidity, and mortality from primary behavioral prevention in youth, to screening, treatment, and survivorship. Projects should develop preliminary data necessary to prepare and submit a competitive research grant application to a major funding agency.

AWARD INFORMATION

Award is for $50,000 per year for up to two years ($100,000 total in direct costs). The next projected award period is July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2014. Two awards remain in this category to be awarded over a four-year period.

Funding Agency: The funding agency for the program is a grant from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Funding was derived from a pool of unclaimed funds from the settlement in 2004 of a class action suit against TAP Pharmaceuticals. The class action suit was related to marketing and sales practices for the prostate cancer drug Lupron.

The Mazzone Awards Program is a DFCI sponsored award, administered jointly through DF/HCC and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Applications will be accepted from two or more independent investigators, at least one of whom holds a full-time appointment on the faculty at Harvard or at any other accredited Massachusetts university, at the level of Instructor or higher. Applicants from institutions throughout the country are encouraged to apply as long as they have a collaborator in a university in Massachusetts. Applicants may apply for multiple grants; however, individuals may only be awarded one A. David Mazzone Research Award at a time.

Employees or subcontractors of a government entity or for-profit private industry are not eligible. Exceptions include applicants holding full-time positions at a veterans' hospital or national laboratory (e.g., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) in the United States. Members of the Program’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) are ineligible to apply.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION INFORMATION
Required items (4):

• Application Form: To be completed online by the Principal Investigator when submitting your proposal at Application Form Web Page. Provide a 250-word abstract description of the project in laymen’s terms.
• Research Proposal: The proposal should describe the research to which this award would be applied if funded. Maximum of 3 pages of text including figures. References and budget pages are not included in this page limit. Appendix material will be accepted with the following restrictions: a two-page limit of relevant supporting text or figures, and only manuscripts that have been accepted for publication with the journal acceptance letter.
• Biosketches: Current NIH Biosketch for each participating PI, including all funding sources.
• Budget: Budget requests (direct costs only) and budget justifications should be submitted as NIH 398 form with major divisions of funds (personnel, equipment, supplies, other, etc.; with adequate rationale). Separate budget pages must be submitted for each individual institution requesting funds. Funds will be distributed directly from DFCI to sub-recipients. A composite budget that includes the total costs of the project should also be included when multiple institutions are involved in the project. PIs may include a level of effort (minimum 5% total) and salary support commensurate with their efforts on the project. Support and effort may be split between the collaborating PIs. Funds may be used for direct research expenses only, which may include salary and benefits of PIs, postdoctoral or clinical research fellows and/or research assistants, research/laboratory supplies, and equipment.
• IRB approval if applicable will be required prior to funding.

Format: Items 2 – 4 (above) must be compiled and submitted as a single PDF file. Please include the PI’s name, project title, and page number at the top of each page.

Submit Proposal Online: Application Form Web Page
Application Deadline: 04:59:59 PM EST, Friday, April 6, 2012.
IN FAIRNESS TO ALL THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS DEADLINE

REVIEW CRITERIA
Applications will be reviewed by members of the Program’s Scientific Review Board. Grants will be awarded on the basis of the following review criteria (in order of importance):

• Significance. The project should address an important problem or a critical barrier to progress in the field. The aims of the project should advance scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice and have near-term patient impact.
• Inter-institutional Links. Proposals that foster inter-institutional research will be favored.
• Investigators. The PIs, collaborators, and other researchers should have the necessary experience and expertise and proven track records of accomplishment. The investigators should have complementary and integrated expertise.
• Innovation. The application should challenge and seek to shift current research or clinical practice paradigms by utilizing novel theoretical concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions.
• Approach. The overall strategy, methodology, and analyses should be well-reasoned and appropriate to accomplish the specific aims of the project.
• Environment. The scientific environment in which the work will be done should contribute to the probability of success.
• Potential to gain independent funding. There should be a high likelihood that project will lead to further peer reviewed funding.

PROGRESS REPORTS
Grantees must submit annual progress reports to DF/HCC including detailed narrative updates, accrual reports (if applicable), and expenditure reports. Progress will be measured through the review of progress reports. Generally, progress that approximately meets benchmarks, timelines, or specific aims that are set forth within corresponding proposals will be funded on a per-year basis through the completion of the grant term.

2011 Lupron treatable disease and conditions Mazzone Awards Recipients

Cancer and Endometriosis
PI: Stacey Missmer, M.S.; Sc.D. (Brigham and Women’s Hospital)
Collaborators: Rulla Tamimi, M.S.; Sc.D (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) Jiali Han, PhD (Brigham and Women’s Hospital)

Endometriosis is a prevalent gynecologic disease, for which Lupron is a primary treatment, which is marked by unclear etiology and signs and symptoms that can be physically debilitating and correlated with infertility. Emerging hospital discharge and case-control data suggest that women with endometriosis may be at greater risk of hormonal and inflammatory-related cancers, with breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and melanoma risk most consistently observed. However, data have not been available to address these relations with a time-dependent approach and accounting for the potential correlation of risk factors and impact of treatment. This project will utilize the more than 20 years of prospectively collected data from the Nurses' Health Study II that began in 1989 when nearly 120,000 women were enrolled -- among whom 8000 laparoscopically-confirmed endometriosis cases have been incidentally diagnosed. Successful completion of these aims may advance our understanding of the etiologies of endometriosis and these cancers and form the basis for public health interventions that can promote earlier detection in these women at greater risk. This study will further collaborative work on the genetic basis of endometriosis at Oxford University as well as inform additional collaborative ongoing investigations of cytoskeletal protein mutations associated with breast cancer and endometriosis at MIT.