BRN

New ARRA Funding Opportunity: R&D on Human Biospecimen Integrity

The National Cancer Institute Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research is pleased to announce the first funding opportunity available under its cancer Human Biobank (caHUB) initiative. This funding is made available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), Pub. L. No. 111-5.

Through an advanced network of tissue acquisition, biorepository operations, pathology review, and bioinformatics capabilities, caHUB will develop the high quality, clinically annotated biospecimens that are essential resources to accelerate the development of molecular-based diagnostics and therapeutics for personalized medicine. Biospecimen research will play an integral role in caHUB by providing quality assessment tools and scientific data to support the development of evidence-based Standard Operating Procedures for biospecimen collection, processing and storage.

Proposals are requested by December 14, 2009 to develop innovative approaches to the control, monitoring and assessment of biospecimen quality. Such proposals may include the development and broad dissemination of biospecimen integrity assessment tools, protocols, and QA/QC measures needed to yield reproducible, high-quality data from research and development efforts that utilize biospecimens. For more information please click here.

BRN Research Program: "Biospecimen Research for Molecular Medicine"

The BRN extramural research program is designed to (1) systematically define the impact of key pre-analytical variables in human biospecimens of specific type on downstream molecular data generated from specific molecular analysis platforms and (2) to develop innovative approaches to the control, monitoring and assessment of biospecimen quality. This research program funds directed research and development in biospecimen science that broadly supports the mission of the NCI.

The first RFP under this program, "R&D on Human Biospecimen Integrity," was released on October 1, 2008. Proposals were requested to develop innovative approaches to the control, monitoring and assessment of biospecimen quality. Four research contracts were awarded. Learn more

A second RFP, "Biospecimen Contributing Institutions for Research Studies in Cancer Tissue Pre-Analytical Variables," described above, was issued on May 5, 2009 and is the first component of a larger multi-center research project designed to systematically assess the effects of human biospecimen pre-analytical variables on the outcome of genomic and proteomic studies. Data resulting from the research program will provide the basis for evidence-based biospecimen protocols that will increase the quality of human biospecimens for research and the emerging field of personalized medicine.

More information on additional funding opportunities related to this important new research initiative will be posted as they become available.