Transforming Health Care through Innovative and Impactful Research

October 27, 2026

The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs funds cancer research across the full research continuum to improve outcomes and care for Service members, their families, veterans, and the American public.

Cancer is the leading cause of death among people younger than 85 years. The CDMRP funding opportunities challenge researchers to find new ways to prevent and treat various cancer types, including breast cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, small cell lung cancer, and prostate cancer.

Advancing Breast Cancer Vaccines Toward Continued Clinical Study

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States. Active duty Servicewomen have up to 40 percent higher risk of breast cancer compared to the general population. The CDMRP Breast Cancer Research Program prioritizes research that addresses prevention, treatment, recurrence, and metastasis, to bring an end to the disease.

In fiscal year 2015, the BCRP awarded Dr. Brian Czerniecki, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, a Breakthrough Award to examine the effect of two vaccines on the body's immune response to attack breast cancer and prevent recurrence.

One vaccine used synthetic DNA to help the immune system recognize cancer cells. The other vaccine used patients' own immune cells to strengthen an immune response. Ninety-six percent of study participants remain cancer free after they received either of the two vaccines in combination with the chemotherapy drug trastuzumab emtansine. These two vaccines advanced to Phase 2 clinical trials funded by other sources.

"These studies are improving the complete response rates in HER-2+ breast cancer while decreasing or eliminating the need for chemotherapy," Dr. Czerniecki said. "These results are truly revolutionizing HER2+ breast cancer therapy by increasing survival, decreasing mortality, and reducing the toxicity of treatments."

CAR T-cell Therapy for Patients with Relapsed B-cell Lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects lymphocytes, including B cells, which help the immune system fight infection. Service members face a higher risk of lymphoma due to environmental exposures during deployment. New options to target B-cell lymphomas that no longer respond to treatment are essential to improve survival rates.

In FY17, the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program awarded Dr. Larry Kwak, City of Hope Beckman Research Institute, an Idea Award to develop a therapy for patients with relapsed B-cell lymphoma. The research focused on a protein found exclusively on B cells that is required for their survival.

Kwak and his team developed a treatment that recognizes malignant B cells while limiting effects on other cell types. Study results led to a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate the treatment's safety. Six of nine Phase I clinical trial participants achieved a complete response and remain in remission.

"The overall project is an example of true bench-to-bedside translational research and highlights the importance of discovery research," Dr. Kwak said. "It also underscores the need to support the work of more physician-scientists (including mentorship of junior physician-scientists), who bring a unique perspective to basic inventions which have the potential to develop into lifesaving therapies for patients. In this case, the development of a cell therapy against a novel target overcame the unmet medical need to rescue patients with leukemias and lymphomas whose tumors had escaped by antigen downregulation."

Making Immunotherapy More Effective in Small Cell Lung Cancer

Small cell lung cancer is an aggressive form of lung cancer that often spreads to other organs before formal diagnosis. Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among veterans. About 5,000 veterans die of lung cancer each year.

Immunotherapy expands the SCLC treatment landscape, although chemotherapy remains the standard of care. Immune cells cannot recognize small cell lung tumors due to their "cold" microenvironment. Tumors in a "cold" micro-environment contain few cancer-fighting immune cells and limit the body's ability to produce an immune response. Developing new therapeutic combinations and immunotherapies will improve outcomes for patients with SCLC.

In FY19, the Lung Cancer Research Program awarded a Translational Research Award to Dr. Triparna Sen, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to explore whether targeting a weakness in SCLC cells could help immunotherapy options work more effectively.

Sen and her team found that SCLC cells have high levels of DNA replication stress and proteins that respond to DNA damage. Sen demonstrated that inhibiting those proteins made immunotherapy treatment more effective.

Sen and colleagues reported that lurbinectedin, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration -approved second-line chemotherapy for SCLC, may help make cold tumors more responsive to immunotherapy. Clinical trials are underway to evaluate this drug combination in patients with small cell lung cancer.

FDA Approves Prostate Cancer Drug Following Pivotal Trials

Prostate cancer is classified as a presumptive cancer for eligible veterans and is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in men.

In prostate cancer, researchers looked for loss of a specific tumor-suppressing gene (PTEN) to identify tumors that respond differently to treatment. Research supported through a Prostate Cancer Research Program award is part of the broader effort to understand this vulnerability and has contributed to a newly approved treatment.

Dr. Michael Morris and investigators, supported by the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium awarded in FY21, led pivotal trials demonstrating that blocking the cancer growth pathway substantially delays disease progression.

The FDA recently approved the targeted drug capivasertib, in combination with abiraterone and prednisone, for adults with prostate cancer lacking the protective PTEN tumor suppressor gene.

"For the research community, this provides a framework for developing targeted therapies, selecting patients, and demonstrating clinical benefit in molecularly defined populations," Dr. Morris said. "For the clinical community, this approach improves outcomes in a patient population that otherwise faces a very difficult prognosis."

Learn More About CDMRP Research Programs

For more information about the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program, visit https://cdmrp.health.mil/prcrp/default

For more information about the Lung Cancer Research Program, visit https://cdmrp.health.mil/lcrp/default

For more information about the Breast Cancer Research Program, visit https://cdmrp.health.mil/bcrp/default

For more information about the Prostate Cancer Research Program, visit https://cdmrp.health.mil/pcrp/default

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Last updated Tuesday, October 27, 2026