Development Funds

DEVELOPMENT FUNDS – SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Since the last CCSG renewal, Development Funds have supported 1) the recruitment of ten outstanding early career investigators, 2) development of two new shared resources and implementation of eight new services in existing shared resources, and 3) partial funding for fourteen MD Anderson Multidisciplinary Research Program (MRP) awards. The $500,000 of CCSG support for faculty recruitment has leveraged over $5.0M in MD Anderson start-up packages and more than $29.6M in new extramural grants. MRP awards provide seed funding of $250,000 over 3 years for groups of three or more center members to support planning and development of P01, SPORE, and CPRIT multi-investigator grant applications. Since the inception of the program in 1997, MD Anderson has invested $11.2M in MRP grants. These awards have been associated with external peer-reviewed funding of more than $157M, representing a 14.1-fold return on investment. During the present grant cycle, 17 proposals have been supported with $625,000 from CCSG Development Funds matched approximately 5:1 with institutional funds. This investment of CCSG support has leveraged $18.6M in extramural funding to date, with $8.8M from Multi-PI awards and $9.8M from individual investigator awards that resulted from projects supported as part of an MRP. Development Funds supported establishing the Functional Genomics Core (FGC) and the Assessment, Intervention and Measurement (AIM) core. In the current CCSG application, Development Funds are requested to continue support for faculty recruitment and fund additional MRP awards. Support is also requested for four developing shared resources: the Oncology Research and Immuno-Monitoring Core (ORION), the Microbiome Core Facility, the Shared Decision Making (SDM) Core, and the Metabolomics Core. Development Funds to provide support for establishing new methods and implementing new technologies within the shared resources and to fund collaborative pilot projects within and between programs are also proposed.