Federal & State Funding for Breast Cancer

The Breast Cancer Research Program employs a systematic process to ensure that the research funded by the Program is unique from, and complementary to, research that is being funded by federal agencies. This process includes the following four steps:

Step 1

Advice on how best to complement research funding available from federal agencies is sought from breast cancer research experts and advocates through means such as the National Advisory Meeting of 1994 and the Advisory Meeting of 1996. The input received at these meetings has resulted in areas of research and funding mechanisms chosen by the Council to encourage applications on breast cancer research issues that are not being well-funded by the federal government.
Step 2

All investigators are required to include in their grant applications the following information about funded research and applications pending with other agencies: the funding agency; the project title; the specific aims of the proposed research project; the dollar amount and duration of funded and pending grant requests to other agencies; the percentage of the investigator's effort devoted to the project; and a desciption of any potenial overlap with the study proposed in the CBCRP application and what changes will be made to eliminate overlap should CBCRP fund the grant. This information is verified by the Contracts and Grants Officer at the applicant institution.
Step 3

All applications are scored by review committees on the degree to which the research proposed is innovative. This score is a component of the overall score for all grant applications. In addition, peer reviewers are asked, as part of their application evaluation, to note any actual or potential overlap between the proposed research and other research being conducted or planned by any investigator. If proposed projects are found to overlap significantly with currently-funded research, they either are given a poor scientific merit score (because innovation is an element of this score) or are asked to modify the proposed study to remove overlapping elements. Reviewers are selected in part because of their knowledge of research being conducted throughout the nation, so they are also in a position to note whether the proposed research is truly innovative and unique.
Step 4

Once the grants to be awarded have been chosen, Program staff carefully review several administrative aspects before releasing funds. One of these aspects is potential duplication with other studies. Staff review the information described above, as well as grants being funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense. If any actual or possible overlap is identified, the investigator is asked to either provide further information concerning the funded projects, or is asked to delete portions of the proposed work to eliminate such overlap. Program staff must be satisfied with the resolution before funds are released.

The primary federal agencies funding research on breast cancer are the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Breast Cancer Research Program. In 1997, the NCI expended $373,912,050 in extramural breast cancer research support, and the DOD distributed $123,753,891 in breast cancer research funds. The relative distribution of funds across areas for these two programs, as compared to the CBCRP, is shown below.

Catagory

NCI 1997
Grants

DOD 1997
Grants Funded

CBCRP 1997
Grants

$

% of Total

$

% of Total

$

% of Total
Normal Breast Biology

$3,409,455
000.9

$1,282,433
001.0

$808,427
005.5
Breast Cancer Biology

$83,976,646
022.5

$30,885,919
025.0

$4,995,153
033.9
Epidemiology

$93,296,889
025.0

$3,282,654
002.7

$2,776,485
018.8
Early Detection

$23,912,247
006.4

$6,566,759
005.3

$411,100
002.8
Treatment

$94,635,780
025.3

$78,318,280
063.3

$4,343,518
029.5
Prevention

$39,125,891
010.5

$995,302
000.8

$967,300
006.6
Cancer Control and Survivorship

$29,056,453
007.8

$763,655
000.6

$431,183
002.9
Public Health/ Professional Education

$6,498,689
001.7

$1,658,889
001.3

$0
000.0

Total

$373,912,050

100.0

$123,753,891

100.0

$14,733,166

100.0

The CBCRP invested a greater proportion of funds into investigating the biology of breast cancer, with nearly half of this amount invested in specific areas identified by the Council as crucial, yet under-funded areas — the biology of the normal human breast, the effects of possible causative agents, and new experimental models to study breast cancer.

A large investment of CBCRP funds was made in epidemiology, with almost all of the funded studies focusing on environmental and/or chemical causes of breast cancer. This is in contrast to DOD, which invested a very small proportion of funds in this area, and NCI, for whom diet and nutrition was the most well-funded topic in this area.

In early detection, the Program has in past years devoted significant funding in three main areas: development of innovative, new methods and technologies; improvement of existing technology (mammography); and social/behavioral research on access and use of screening. The Council remains interested primarily in the first area and continues to encourage funding that will result in better and more effective early detection.

Over the past three years, the program has gradually increased funding in research on breast cancer treatment. However, the Program has filled a unique niche in this area. While NCI supports large clinical trials of new chemotherapy, CBCRP has focused on small pre-clinical or pilot studies of new approaches to therapy.

“The Program placed a higher priority on issues that were receiving less funding from federal agencies and which are of particular interest
in our state.”

The ultimate challenge for all agencies engaged in the fight against breast cancer is prevention. The gap in knowledge about the basic biology of the normal breast and the causes and development of cancer limit current efforts. By virtue of a targeted call for applications in this area, CBCRP was able to fund nearly as much research on prevention in California as the much larger DOD program funded across the country. Continued targeting of this area is expected to sustain this level of funding and to bring results in more basic research to bear on breast cancer prevention quickly.

In this, the third funding cycle, the California Breast Cancer Research Program has further expanded the range of breast cancer research being performed in the state. The Program placed a higher priority on issues that were receiving less funding from federal agencies and which are of particular interest in our state, especially prevention, chemical and environmental causes of breast cancer, the biology of the normal human breast, and new, innovative treatment modalities. The Program has also increased emphasis on collaboration, translation, and community involvement by creating specific award types that stimulate and support these concepts. Finally, CBCRP also invested over $3 million to specific topics that have not been sufficiently supported by these other agencies ­ namely basic breast biology and prevention, risk identification, and reduction. It is also important to note that a number of CBCRP's Cycle III grants focus on populations of special interest to California (e.g., racial and ethnic populations with large numbers of California residents). By continuing to direct state funds towards important topics in breast cancer that are less supported by federal research dollars and that are of particular importance in the state, the CBCRP promises to accelerate progress in reducing the human and economic costs of breast cancer in California.

Chart