Developmental Funds

DEVELOPMENTAL FUNDS ABSTRACT Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) utilizes Developmental Funds to support critical initiatives identified via strategic planning and evaluation, with the goal to build capacity at our Cancer Center and to further our mission. In the coming award period, investments will be focused in four areas: Faculty Recruitment: During the current review period, HCI doubled its research space via construction of the Primary Children's and Families Cancer Research Center at HCI (Research South, 225,000 ft2, $119M, opened June 2017). With the benefit of these new facilities and HCI’s programmatic resources, we aim to increase our Cancer Center membership through recruitment of six faculty per year over the next five years (2019-23). HCI requests Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) funds for partial support of selected HCI strategic recruitments. Research Staff Investigators: HCI Staff investigators are supported through CCSG Developmental Funds to enable the advancement of key strategic objectives of the Center. Lisa Cannon-Albright, PhD, is a highly experienced user of our unique biomedical research resource, the Utah Population Database (UPDB). She educates and collaborates with faculty interested in using UPDB to identify families with undue burden of disease for studies. Jennifer Doherty, MS, PhD is an expert in team science, who works to enhance collaborative interactions at the Cancer Center, mentoring both junior researchers and established researchers in transdisciplinary approaches. She also builds cross-specialty teams that incorporate molecular epidemiologic research methodologies or integrate epidemiology with laboratory and clinical efforts. Developing Shared Resource: To meet the evolving research needs of our membership, HCI has created an emerging shared resource, the Preclinical Research Resource (PRR), focused on the development and utilization of preclinical models of disease, including patient-derived xenograft models, genetically engineered mouse models, and organoid models. PRR supports HCI’s mission to advance the understanding of cancer mechanisms and develop novel cancer interventions. HCI requests CCSG funds to provide partial support. Pilot Research Funding: To support promising pilot research, HCI provides Research Programs with institutional, non-CCSG, funding. Funds are lodged in the hands of Research Program Leaders, to directly empower them to reach their strategic goals and to advance collaborative, transdisciplinary research approaches. $200K/year/program is awarded to each of HCI’s four Programs. HCI also supports its Disease Centers with funding for preliminary studies. In total, HCI invests ~$2.3M/year to support pilot research. In addition, funds have been dedicated to programmatic investigator-initiated trials ($700K) since 2017.