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Rare Cancers

NEWS RELEASE

Released: March 31, 2025

Department of Defense
Defense Health Agency Research and Development -
Medical Research and Development Command
Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP)
Rare Cancers Research Program
Anticipated Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25)

The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2025 provides $650M in funding for the CDMRP. Congress provided further guidance for CDMRP program-level funding, including funding for the Rare Cancers Research Program (RCRP). The FY25 RCRP intends to support exceptional scientific merit in rare cancers research. The CDMRP is part of the Defense Health Agency Research and Development at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) and is the program office managing these anticipated FY25 funding opportunities.

The RCRP is providing the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY25 funding opportunities. This pre-announcement should not be construed as an obligation by the government. The FY25 RCRP funding opportunity announcements for the following award mechanisms will be posted on the Grants.gov website. Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the announcements are released.

Applications submitted to the FY25 RCRP Concept Award and Idea Development Award must address one or more of the following focus areas:

  • Biology and Etiology: Identify disease-defining molecular pathways, cell context and microenvironment.
  • Research Model: Develop and validate rare tumor-specific models that can support clinical trial readiness.
  • Therapy: Identify novel therapeutic strategies, including drug repurposing.

Applications submitted to the FY25 RCRP Resource and Community Development Award must address the focus area below:

  • Platform Development: Develop platforms (such as tumor tissue repositories with clinical annotation, centralized databanks, patient registries with common data structure, research models, "Omics" databases and longitudinal studies of natural history and treatment response) for multiple types or sub-types of rare cancers to allow sharing of data, bio-specimens and resources.

Award Mechanism Eligibility Key Mechanism Elements Funding
Concept Award Investigators at or above the level of postdoctoral fellow
  • Supports high-risk/high-reward research that is in the earliest stages of idea development or an untested theory that addresses an important problem related to rare cancers. Proof-of-concept is the anticipated outcome.
  • Reviewers will be blinded to the identity of the Principal Investigator, collaborators and their organization(s).
  • Submission must address at least one of the FY25 focus areas of Biology and Etiology, Research Model and/or Therapy.
  • Preliminary data are not required.
  • Clinical trials are not allowed.
  • Maximum funding of $140,000 for total costs.
  • Maximum period of performance is 2 years.
Idea Development Award Investigators at or above the level of Assistant Professor
  • Submission of a preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.
  • Supports high-risk/high-reward research with the potential to yield impactful data in the rare cancer field.
  • Preliminary data with disease-specific rationale (may include correlatives studies to ongoing clinical research) to support the feasibility of the research hypotheses and research approaches are required; however, these data may be derived from studies of the proposed rare cancer type(s)/subtype(s) under study.
  • Submission must address at least one of the FY25 focus areas of Biology and Etiology, Research Model and/or Therapy.
  • Clinical trials are not allowed.
  • Maximum funding of $490,000 for total costs.
  • Maximum period of performance is 3 years.
Resource and Community Development Award Investigators at or above the level of Assistant Professor
  • Submission of a preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.
  • Emphasis on research resources development to facilitate collaboration and information sharing among stakeholders such as researchers, patients, family members, caregivers, clinicians and other members of the rare cancers community.
  • Supports platform development or infrastructure that can be applied to multiple rare cancers.
  • Preliminary data are not required but may be included (translational research and clinical studies may be included).
  • Submission must address the FY25 Platform Development focus area.
  • Clinical trials are not allowed.
  • Maximum funding of $1,120,000 for total costs.
  • Maximum period of performance is 4 years.

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) at https://eBRAP.org prior to the pre-application deadline. All applications must conform to the final funding opportunity announcements that will be available for downloading from the Grants.gov website. The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov. A listing of all CDMRP and other USAMRDC extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420.

Submission deadlines are not available until the funding opportunity announcements are released. For email notification when announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under "Email Subscriptions" on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org. For more information about the RCRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://cdmrp.health.mil).

Point of Contact:
CDMRP Public Affairs
301-619-9783
dha.detrick.cdmrp.mbx.public-affairs@health.mil


Last updated Monday, March 31, 2025