NIH to fund research on cancer busting imaging-biomarker combos

The NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) is inviting researchers to apply for dollars to explore ways to harmonize imaging strategies with biomarker methodologies en route to creating an integrated system for cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis and care.

In a Jan. 25 funding opportunity announcement, the NCI says it will establish the Consortium for Imaging and Biomarkers (CIB) as part of the new project.

The CIB will drive and facilitate collaborative studies, information exchange, knowledge sharing and resource dissemination.

It will also coordinate research conducted by individual multidisciplinary teams, each of which will be expected to closely collaborate with other participating teams.

In laying out the backdrop occasioning the initiative, the NCI points out, in so many words, that overdiagnosis and false positives greatly complicate matters for physicians trying to treat patients safely, efficaciously and cost-effectively—to say nothing of what those inaccuracies put the patients through.

To that point, the institute says the specific objective of the new funding is to “stimulate and support” cancer imaging and biomarker research that will ultimately yield ways to:

• Detect aggressive cancers at the earliest stages possible;
• Reduce overdiagnosis;
• Reduce false positive tests; and
• Identify lethal cancers from non-lethal disease.

“These goals can be met,” the NCI states, “by a research strategy involving preclinical and clinical investigations to improve early cancer detection and diagnosis where validated cancer biomarkers can be combined with experimental imaging methods, or conversely, where established clinical imaging methods can be combined with experimental biomarkers.”

The institute does not name the total dollar amount of funds available, stating instead that this will come down to NIH decisions on appropriations and “the submission of a sufficient number of meritorious applications.”

It further notes that there will be additional steps for applicants requesting $500,000 or more in direct costs in any year.

Interested researchers can apply for the funding as early as June 11, and the NCI will continue accepting applications until Dec. 18, 2018.

For all the details, click here.