DoD Breast Cancer, Breakthrough Award Levels 1 and 2 | W81XWH 19 BCRP BTA12

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 19 BCRP BTA12

The DoD Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) Breakthrough Award Levels 1 and 2 (Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-19-BCRP-BTA12) is a discretionary research funding opportunity administered by the Department of Defense (Dept. of the Army, USAMRAA). Its central purpose is to back breast cancer research that is genuinely positioned to change the landscape, meaning projects are expected to aim for outcomes that could lead to a breakthrough rather than a small incremental step. Successful applications are expected to clearly explain the potential impact, identify which breast cancer patients or at-risk populations would ultimately benefit, and show how the proposed work could accelerate progress toward ending breast cancer, either in the near term or over a longer horizon. A key expectation is that the proposed approach should be fundamentally better than existing interventions already approved or currently in clinical development, not simply a modest refinement.

The award is organized into multiple funding levels that correspond to different stages on the path toward clinical application, and applicants must choose the level that matches the scientific maturity and scope of their project. The program stresses that the level choice should be driven by the defined research scope in the program announcement, not by the size of the requested budget. If a proposal does not fit the intent of the selected level, it may be deemed noncompetitive for funding even if it might have fit a different level. This specific announcement covers only Levels 1 and 2; Levels 3 and 4 are offered through separate program announcements (W81XWH-19-BCRP-BTA3 and W81XWH-19-BCRP-BTA4), and applicants are encouraged to compare the scopes across levels before submitting.

Funding Level 1 is designed for innovative, high-risk/high-reward ideas that are still at an early stage. The goal here is to catalyze bold concepts with a clearly defined potential to open new directions in breast cancer research. Because it is intended to support early idea development, preliminary data are not required, and the expected deliverable is proof of concept rather than a fully developed preclinical package. In practice, this level fits projects where the main value is in testing a novel hypothesis, platform, or mechanism that could reshape how breast cancer is understood, prevented, detected, or treated if early evidence supports it.

Funding Level 2 targets preclinical research that is more mature and is already backed by substantial preliminary and/or published data. The emphasis is on projects that strongly validate clinical translation within a well-defined breast cancer context, meaning applicants should be able to make a credible, evidence-based case that the work is positioned to move toward clinical utility. A specific allowance is also described for Level 2 population science and prevention studies. With strong justification, these studies may request higher levels of funding and an additional year of performance time, recognizing that research involving human subjects and/or human biospecimens often requires added infrastructure, recruitment, compliance steps, and associated costs. Even so, the underlying expectation remains the same: the work should be translationally relevant and convincingly tied to a clinically meaningful application or prevention impact.

The opportunity strongly encourages collaboration through a Partnering PI Option. This structure allows two principal investigators to apply together as an Initiating PI and a Partnering PI, with each PI receiving a separate award. While submission requirements differ for each role, both investigators are expected to play major roles in shaping the scientific plan, including key components such as the project narrative and statement of work. The collaboration must be substantive: each PI should contribute distinct expertise, whether from similar fields or complementary disciplines, and the application should explain why the partnership meaningfully strengthens the project and why the work is better done together than through separate, loosely connected efforts. The program also flags what it does not consider aligned with the intent of this mechanism, including arrangements that function mainly as mentoring pairings (for example, a mentor with a current postdoctoral fellow or junior investigator listed as the two PIs). It also discourages one person from serving as a Partnering PI on multiple Level 1 or 2 proposals unless the research questions are clearly distinct.

From a staffing and capability standpoint, applications are expected to assemble a robust research team with the breast cancer-relevant expertise necessary to execute the work successfully. Research involving human subjects or human anatomical substances is allowed, but clinical trials are explicitly not permitted under this Levels 1 and 2 announcement. Investigators who want to conduct a clinical trial are directed instead to the Breakthrough Award Level 3 and Level 4 announcements, which are structured to support that stage of translation.

Finally, the program requires relevance to military health. Proposed work must be connected to the health care needs of military Service members, Veterans, military beneficiaries, and/or the broader American public. In effect, applicants should be prepared to explain how the expected knowledge or eventual intervention could matter for these populations, whether through prevention, risk reduction, improved detection, better treatment strategies, or improved survivorship outcomes. Administrative details provided in the source include that the eligible applicant pool is described as unrestricted (open to any type of entity, subject to any eligibility clarifications in the full text), the funding instrument types include grants and cooperative agreements, the CFDA number is 12.420, and the announcement anticipated around 32 awards for the cited cycle (creation date January 22, 2019; original closing date March 28, 2019).

• 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, Breakthrough Award Levels 1 and 2" 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 Jan 22, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 28, 2019. (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 32 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 19 BCRP BTA12

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