Developmental Funds

PROJECT SUMMARY Developmental Funds are a critical tool in advancing the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium’s strategic priorities. These funds are used for three primary purposes: supporting new recruits in the form of New Investigator Awards, funding innovative pilot projects, and subsidizing several key staff investigators. New Investigator Awards are used to augment the recruitment packages of newly hired Consortium scientists. These additional funds enable investigators to explore high-risk ideas or generate preliminary data that can be used for future grant applications. In the most recent five years of CCSG-funded New Investigator Award competitions (2019-2023), we have supported 27 newly recruited Consortium faculty, all of whom have research aims rooted in areas of strategic growth. Pilot Awards, on the other hand, are available to all Consortium members for the purpose of funding new projects, particularly in the areas of transdisciplinary science, cancer health disparities, and catchment area health. In the most recent five years of Pilot Award competitions (2019-2023), the Consortium funded 53 Pilot Award projects with 33 funded by the CCSG and 20 funded by philanthropic funds, many of which evolved into new research directions and collaborations that would not have been possible otherwise. Although primarily funded by the CCSG, Pilot Awards are supplemented by philanthropic gifts which typically allow an additional three to eight awards to be funded annually. Since the last competing renewal, New Investigator and Pilot funding mechanisms resulted in a combined total of 85 publications and more than $39.4M in new follow-on funding, with $28.3M resulting from CCSG funds and $11.1M from philanthropic funds. Developmental Funds also support two Special Populations Staff Investigators whose work is focused on reducing disparities in underserved populations. Their research and outreach efforts are vital to advancing the Consortium’s initiatives on community engagement and health access for all. In this application, we are requesting funds to support future New Investigator and Pilot Awards and two new Special Populations Staff Investigators.