DoD Peer Reviewed, Translational Team Science Award | W81XWH 22 PRCRP TTSA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 22 PRCRP TTSA

The Department of Defense (DoD), through the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP), offered the FY22 Translational Team Science Award (TTSA) to fund hypothesis-driven translational research that is directly tied to an ongoing or completed clinical trial. The central idea is to take what has already been learned in human studies and push it further toward practical clinical use, either by generating the evidence needed for a next-phase clinical trial or by producing findings that can be applied in future clinical care. While the mechanism can support clinical trial activity, the program is not meant to simply bankroll a standalone trial. Instead, it is designed to fund deeper, team-based translational work that uses clinical trial-derived information to answer important questions that matter to patients and clinicians.

A defining feature of this award is the required team structure. Projects must be led by a collaborative group of at least two and no more than three Principal Investigators who jointly drive one integrated research plan within at least one of the required FY22 PRCRP Topic Areas. The expectation is that the project cannot succeed without the distinct expertise of each PI, meaning the collaboration should be real and essential rather than symbolic. The DoD also strongly encourages including at least one military or Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) investigator as an equal partner, with meaningful scientific ownership and a substantial role in the work. In this context, a military/VA investigator can include active duty or active reserve personnel (including those detailed to agencies outside DoD), civilian DoD investigators, or investigators based at a VA research facility. Importantly, the program makes it clear that such a partner should not be added only to gain access to military or VA patient populations; they should contribute intellectually and operationally to the research.

The TTSA is explicitly translational in how it expects projects to be conceived and executed. Applications are supposed to show a two-way flow of information between clinical and basic science, or vice versa, demonstrating that clinical insights are shaping the research questions and that the research outcomes will feed back into clinical decision-making. Because the award is grounded in clinical trial experience, applicants are expected to leverage clinical data to address unresolved issues in outcomes, confirm or validate promising findings, expand results that could be practice-changing, or explore new clinical observations that emerged from trials. At the same time, the opportunity draws boundaries around what it does not want to fund; it is not intended for high-throughput screening efforts or large-scale sequencing projects that are not clearly positioned as focused translational steps connected to clinical trial evidence.

Another major emphasis is rigor and near-term clinical relevance. The application must include relevant clinical preliminary data (or cite the investigative team’s published clinical work) to justify the proposed direction and demonstrate that the project is built on an authentic clinical foundation rather than speculation. In addition, the study design is expected to be methodologically strong, with a clear statistical plan and a detailed data analysis strategy. The program signals that it cares not just about whether results will be statistically significant, but about whether the anticipated outcomes could realistically influence patient care in the near term. In other words, applicants need to show how the way they will evaluate data maps to meaningful clinical impact, not merely academic interest.

In terms of purpose and expected payoff, the TTSA is aimed at accelerating progress across the cancer care continuum, including prevention, detection, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and survivorship. Funded projects are expected to tackle critical gaps in knowledge that affect clinical outcomes and to speed the movement of strong, clinically grounded ideas into applications that can improve patient health. The opportunity is administered by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army (USAMRAA), listed under Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-22-PRCRP-TTSA, and uses grant and cooperative agreement funding instruments under CFDA 12.420. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any entity type, subject to any additional eligibility notes in the full announcement). The posting indicated an anticipated nine awards, with an original closing date of August 2, 2022.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Peer Reviewed, Translational Team Science Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 31, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 02, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 9 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 22 PRCRP TTSA

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