The Florida Department of Health has released the call for grant applications for the 2015-2016 James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program. The purpose of this program is to support research initiatives that address the health care problems of Floridians in the areas of tobacco-related cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and pulmonary disease.
All applications submitted in response to this funding opportunity must be responsive to one of the following 8 research priorities. Because tobacco-related diseases have disparate impacts on Floridians, health equity and opportunity should be addressed in applications, including efforts to foster collaborations among institutions, researchers, and community practitioners. Researchers applying for funding as New Investigators, or with Team Science applications, or applications focused on Comparative Effectiveness Research will be given extra weight in the peer review process . Researchers conducting behavioral health research involving tobacco cessation and control are required to coordinate with the Department of Health’s Tobacco – Free Florida Program.
- Prevention and Treatment
- Health Disparities
- Screening
- Tobacco Use
- Obesity
- Treatment-Related Morbidities
- Technology Transfer Feasibility (TTF)
- Investigational New Drug (IND) or Investigational Device Exemption (IDE)
All applicants must clearly demonstrate how the proposed project is relevant to tobacco-related cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and pulmonary disease.
There are four funding mechanisms available within this Call to pursue the above eight research priorities:
- Discovery Science: Discovery science means fundamental theoretical or experimental investigative research to advance knowledge without a specifically envisaged or immediately practical application. Directed to understanding the events related to the development or prevention of tobacco-related diseases at the molecular, cellular, and organismic levels, as well as the discovery and development of new drugs or therapies for tobacco-related diseases. Funding level: Up to $1,500,000 total costs spread over a maximum of three years.
- Infrastructure: Eligible organizations may submit an infrastructure application in one of the following six areas: tissue banking, bioinformatics, genomics, diagnostic imaging, health disparities, and quality indicator systems, as described below. The Department is particularly interested in research involving quality indicator systems, when this is linked with other priorities, such as increasing the number of Florida research networks, external funding for research infrastructure and large scale projects, including but not limited to National Cancer Institute grants. Organizations will only be permitted to be the lead on one application. Funding level: Up to $1,500,000 total costs spread over a maximum of three years.
- Clinical Research: Clinical research means research that gathers evidence of the benefits and harms of various treatment options for tobacco-related diseases, directly involves a particular person or group of people, or uses materials from humans, such as their behavior or samples of their tissue. Clinical research can involve observational trials, trials of new medications or medication combinations for tobacco-related diseases, behavioral health interventions, and healthcare delivery comparisons. Funding level: Up to $2,000,000 total costs spread over a maximum of five years.
- Bridge: The intent of this grant mechanism is to provide interim support for promising investigator-initiated research projects that have been highly rated by national panels of peer reviewers in recent federal competitions but were not funded due to budgetary constraints. To be eligible, applicants must have submitted a multi-year, investigator-initiated research application to a federal agency (such as an NIH R type). The applicant must have received a peer review summary statement indicating high scientific merit. Funding level: Up to $100,000 total costs spread over a maximum of six months.
Researchers may not submit a project under a different title than specified in the LOI. Researchers are allowed to submit one LOI per program as PI. The PI may serve as co-PI or other role on other applications, provided they are not over committed.
PIs or key personnel participating in any submission to this program must ensure that there is no overlap or duplication (scientific or financial) among other applications for this deadline that have any overlapping key personnel participating in them. Proposals with duplication of effort and overlapping key personnel or PIs may be rejected based on this overlap. For this reason, we are requesting that interested applicants for ALL funding mechanisms submit an internal LOI as described below by Wednesday, July 15, 2015.
UF may submit only one Infrastructure proposal for the James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program with UF as the lead institution. Applicants interested in applying for the Infrastructure Proposal must submit an internal Letter of Intent (LOI; click here for guidelines) including a list of all key personnel to the UF Office of Research (limitedprograms@research.ufl.edu) by July 15, 2015 for internal coordination.
The other three funding mechanisms (Discovery Science, Clinical Research and Bridge) are not limited in the number of applications UF may submit, but must not duplicate other proposals being submitted to this program or Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program. Interested applicants for these three mechanisms must submit an internal Letter of Intent (LOI; click here for guidelines) including a list of all key personnel to Dr. John Wingard (wingajr@ufl.edu), with a CC to Wendy Malorzo (wmalorzo@ufl.edu) and to Jeevan Jyot (limitedprograms@research.ufl.edu) by Wednesday, July 15, 2015 for internal coordination.
A required LOI is due to the sponsor from applicants for all funding mechanisms by July 29, 2015, and full applications are due September 2, 2015.