DoD Breast Cancer, Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium Award | W81XWH 22 BCRP TBCCA 2

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 22 BCRP TBCCA 2

The DoD Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium Award (TBCCA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH 22 BCRP TBCCA 2) is a large, highly collaborative funding mechanism meant to back bold, paradigm-shifting work that can genuinely transform the day-to-day lives of people who have breast cancer or are at risk for it. The central idea is not incremental progress or another well-worn research pathway, but a coordinated effort that can meaningfully accelerate progress toward the mission of ending breast cancer. A key point in how the DoD frames this opportunity is that the intended "transformation" should be felt in people’s lives (outcomes, risk, survivorship, mortality, quality of life), rather than being mainly a transformation of the research enterprise or healthcare delivery system itself.

The award is structured around a consortium model and requires a team-based approach that pulls together multiple disciplines and perspectives, including strong participation from consumer advocates alongside scientists and clinicians. The consortium must be built from at least four and no more than five project teams, each pursuing a distinct project, but all tightly connected under a single central hypothesis. To avoid becoming a single-institution mega-project, no more than two of the project teams can be based at the same institution. Each project team has its own Principal Investigator, but the overall effort is led by a Consortium Director, and the work must be designed so the teams are not operating as separate silos. Reviewers are looking for a structure where every component is interdependent and clearly contributes to testing or advancing the shared hypothesis.

A major emphasis is on true integration, not just coordination. Applications must spell out, in detail, how integration will happen across administration, logistics, and (most importantly) the science. A basic communication plan, an administrative management plan, or simply listing personnel who sit on multiple teams is not considered enough. The application needs to explain the integrated research processes: how data, methods, experimental systems, clinical inputs, analytic pipelines, and decision-making will flow across the consortium, and how that integration creates synergy that could not be achieved by a single lab or a loose collaboration.

Scientifically, the DoD is asking for research that is both innovative and disruptive to the current "Breast Cancer Landscape" described by the BCRP, with the expectation that the funded work will produce answers that reshape the field rather than just add another layer of findings. The proposed work should directly address one or more of the FY22 BCRP Overarching Challenges. If a consortium proposes to tackle a different fundamental problem, it has to justify why that problem fits the intent of the mechanism and still link it to at least one FY22 Overarching Challenge. Another defining feature is the requirement for an "ecologic approach" in the broad sense: the consortium should look across the disease rather than narrowing to a single angle, bringing together multiple disciplines into one coherent plan that also tackles questions tied to the central hypothesis that have not been adequately addressed before.

The mechanism also sets clear boundaries on what it does and does not want to fund. It is explicitly not meant to replace, supplement, duplicate, or compete with existing large collaborative efforts like NCI SPOREs, and it should not read like a set of related program project subgrants bundled together. Similarly, proposals are discouraged if the consortium’s primary focus or central hypothesis is something the program considers too narrow, incremental, or tool-driven, such as large-scale drug screening or testing a therapeutic "cocktail," targeting a single gene or protein, making a new derivative or formulation of an old drug, doing genomic landscape mapping as the main thrust, or focusing primarily on improving existing screening technologies like mammography or MRI. The program also notes that if the proposed work fits the criteria or scope of the FY22 BCRP Breakthrough Awards, then TBCCA is not the appropriate mechanism.

While a clinical trial is not required, the research may include Phase 1 clinical trials and may involve partnerships with pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies when appropriate. The important constraint is that a clinical trial should not be the primary focus of the application; it can be a component that supports the central hypothesis rather than the centerpiece.

A distinctive feature of the TBCCA is built-in flexibility for new ideas: the award includes funding for "seed projects" during the award period. These are intended to support brand-new, high-risk/high-reward concepts that emerge from the consortium’s ongoing work, allowing the group to pursue promising directions without having to wait for a future grant cycle. This reinforces the program’s preference for ambitious, adaptive research programs that can pivot as new insights arise.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is offered by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA). It is listed as a discretionary opportunity with funding instruments that may include grants and cooperative agreements under CFDA 12.420. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open broadly to entity types, subject to any extra clarifications in the full announcement). The posting indicates an expected number of awards of one, underscoring that this is designed to fund a single, standout consortium rather than many smaller projects. The original opportunity dates shown are a creation date of May 24, 2022, with an original closing date of November 2, 2022, and the award ceiling is listed as 0 in the source data (often meaning the ceiling is not stated in that field and must be confirmed in the full funding announcement documents).

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Breast Cancer, Transformative Breast Cancer Consortium Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 24, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 02, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 22 BCRP TBCCA 2

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: