Introduction

The California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) is pleased to announce the funding of 42 new research grants that will advance our knowledge about the causes, prevention, sociocultural aspects, biology, detection, and treatment of breast cancer. With these new awards we are investing over $14.7 million for research projects being performed at 27 institutions across the state, including universities both public (e.g., University of California campuses) and private (e.g., Stanford University), national laboratories (e.g., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), research institutes (e.g., The Burnham Institute), medical centers (e.g., Long Beach Memorial Medical Center), and community organizations (e.g., Mendocino Cancer Resource Center).

The CBCRP supports breast cancer research in California from funds obtained through:

This is our tenth year (or cycle) of grant funding, and through 2004 we have awarded nearly $165 million to fund 611 research projects. The CBCRP is administered by the University of California, Office of the President, in Oakland. Our overall objectives, strategies, and priorities are developed with the assistance of a volunteer advisory Council, which also makes recommendations on the applications to be funded. The Council consists of 16 members: five are representatives of breast cancer survivor/advocacy groups; five are scientists/clinicians; two are members from nonprofit health organizations, one is a practicing breast cancer medical specialist, two are members from private industry, and one is an ex officio member from the State of California, Department of Health Services Breast Cancer Early Detection Program: Every Women Counts.

The Goals of Our Research Funding

The mission of the CBCRP is to eliminate breast cancer by leading innovation in research, communication, and collaboration in the California scientific and lay communities.

The CBCRP seeks to fund a unique grant portfolio that does not overlap with other research agencies. To establish the CBCRP's priorities and advance our mission, our advisory Council identified these key criteria for the research CBCRP funds:

Additionally, we utilize several award types that:

We are constantly evaluating our granting efforts to better meet the needs of both the research and the breast cancer advocacy communities in California.

CBCRP Funding Changes for 2005

We recently completed a three-year priority-setting process during which we asked ourselves, “How successful were we at funding breast cancer research that met our stated goals?” We observed certain of our research topics, such as Health Policy & Health Services, Etiology (which we revised to focus on environmental and lifestyle issues), and Racial & Ethnic Differences in Breast Cancer attracted very few applications. These were topics where California offered tremendous opportunities, but we concluded the conventional style of grant funding did not address very well. In addition, despite our attempts to stimulate collaborative, translational, and cross-disciplinary projects, the CBCRP was funding few grants in these areas. Some of our career development award types received little interest. Finally, despite our best intentions, it was apparent that our larger innovative grant applications (STEPs) were not true “high risk-high reward” projects. These issues limited us in fulfilling the CBCRP's mission.

In order to maximize our impact and build on our strengths, the CBCRP and our advisory Council have instituted substantial changes to our research grant program starting next year in Cycle 11. We are taking two paths to support critical breast cancer research in California. First, the CBCRP will set aside 30 percent of our funding for the next five years to tackle research questions that California is uniquely positioned to address. Through an intensive evaluation, we identified the following critical research topics: (1) defining the influence of the environment and lifestyle on breast cancer and (2) uncovering the reasons for the unequal burden (disparities) of breast cancer. Over the next year, we will convene a task force comprised of researchers and advocates to identify the knowledge gaps and available California resources in these areas. With the help of the task force, we will determine how California.s resources can be leveraged to make the biggest leaps forward in tackling breast cancer and launch high-impact program initiatives. At present we are not soliciting grant applications for these initiatives.

The remaining 70 percent of our future research funding will support traditional grant applications. We are focusing our “core funding” efforts in the areas of innovative research, career development, and community participation. The CBCRP award types will now include four categories:

We will no longer offer the following award types: RFA, STEP, Translational Research Collaborations (TRCs: both Pilot & Full Awards), Scientific Perspectives Research Collaborations (SPRCs, both Pilots and Full Awards), New Investigator, Career Enrichment, Mentored Scholar, and Training Program.

The CBCRP Funding Process

In this Compendium, we present the outcome of our 2004 grant application review and funding process. In 2004 we received 232 grant applications in response to our .call. for new research on breast cancer. These applications were reviewed and scored by our out-of-state scientific and advocate reviewers. Our review committee membership lists and the review process are described at the end of this booklet. After the peer review scores those applications having sufficient scientific merit were rated by our advisory Council for responsiveness to stated CBCRP programmatic criteria. The end result is that the CBCRP.s advisory Council balances the scientific merit and programmatic ratings to arrive at a funding recommendation for each application. Thus, the successful applicant has responded both in terms of presenting a high quality research project and by meeting the interests of CBCRP stakeholders.

The Outcome

Below and in the sections to follow are summaries, discussions, and listings of newly funded CBCRP grants for 2004 including:

The full abstracts of these newly funded grants, as well as those from previous CBCRP funding cycles, can be found on our Web site: www.cbcrp.org.

Overall CBCRP Funding in 2004

Total for new grants awarded in 2004 = $14,719,446

2004/Cycle X Funding Highlights

2004 Applications and Awards by CBCRP Research Topics

Research topic

# Applications

# Grants Awarded

Awarded Amount

Community Impact
Health Policy & Health Services
Sociocultural, Behavioral, & Psychological
Disparities

 
9
28
10

 
1
8
2

 
$89,728
$2,800,709
$190,000

Etiology & Prevention
Etiology
Prevention and Risk Reduction

 
7
22

 
3
5

 
$1,052,287
$2,849,376

Detection, Prognosis, and Treatment
Imaging, Biomarkers, & Molecular Pathology
Innovative Treatments

 
11
33

 
2
3

 
$1,436,996
$748,352

Biology of the Breast Cell
Biology of the Normal Breast
Pathogenesis

 
22
81

 
8
10

 
$1,605,672
$3,916,353

2004 Applications and Awards by CBCRP Award Types

Award Type

# Applications

# Grants Awarded

Award Amount
Collaboration awards:

Community (CRC)

 15 3 $386,132

Translational (TRC)

 21 5 $2,578,242

Sci. Perspectives (SPRC)

 4 2 $2,066,496

Total Collaboration

 40 10 $5,030,870
 
Investigator-initiated Awards:

RFA

 27 7 $6,465,565

STEP

 51 4 $1,143,088

IDEA

 31 8 $1,005,521

Total Investigator-Initiated

 109 19 $8,614,174
 
Career Development Awards:

Dissertation

 10 4 $234,713

Postdoctoral

 50 9 $809,716

New Investigator

 13 0 0

Career Enrichment

 1 0 0

Total Career

 74 13 $1,044,429

Description of Award Types Funded in 2004