CPRIT’s cancer research funding awards: 403 proposals still in contention

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) announced today that 403 of the nearly 900 proposals submitted are still in contention for CPRIT’s inaugural cancer research funding awards. The applications for the Individual Investigator Research Award and the High Impact/High Risk Research Award will now undergo a second, more intense peer review evaluation by seven committees over the next six weeks beginning the end of this month. CPRIT expects to announce its first funding awards in January 2010, just three months after the submission deadline.

“The number and quality of the applications submitted to CPRIT’s first call for creative, innovative projects is impressive,” said Bill Gimson, CPRIT’s executive director. “Texas is defining the fight against cancer and researchers are responding.”

CPRIT-funded research will be conducted in state by Texas-based scientists. The proposals represent all parts of the state, from institutions and foundations, to public and private companies. They reflect CPRIT’s mission to attract and expand the state’s research capabilities and create new, high quality jobs in Texas. More than 80 percent of the Texas academic institutions submitting proposals have at least one application remaining under consideration for a funding award.

CPRIT is committed to supporting research that is distinctly transformative. The funds requested from the nearly 900 applications received by CPRIT are at least twelve times the amount that can be accommodated with available funds approved in the last legislative session. Given the strength of the pool of proposals, the decision to fund an application at this stage is based on the collective opinion that the work proposed is most incremental in its potential impact.

The research application and award process is overseen by CPRIT’s Chief Scientific Officer, Nobel laureate Alfred G. Gilman, M.D., Ph.D. Another renowned scientist and Nobel laureate, Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., chairs CPRIT’s Scientific Review Council, the group responsible for creating a list of recommendations for funding research awards. In order to minimize any conflicts of interest, the peer review is being conducted by more than 100 scientists that live and work outside Texas.