In support of the 2012 Presidential Executive Order, the DoD and VA devoted > $100 million to fund 2 new consortia aimed at improving diagnosis and treatment of mild traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Consortium to Alleviate PTSD and the Chronic Effects of Neurotrauma Consortium are jointly managed by the VA and CDMRP on behalf of the DoD and bring together leading scientists and clinicians devoted to the health and welfare of our nation’s service members and veterans. Consortium efforts are expected to have an emphasis toward translational/clinical work.
The OCRP developed the Translational Research Partnership Award mechanism to move an observation from the laboratory into clinical application for ovarian cancer. The novelty of this award is that one partner in the collaboration is required to be a laboratory scientist and the other is required to be a clinician. This award mechanism has been adopted by several other CDMRP research programs; a comparable mechanism has not been offered by other funding agencies.
The Peer Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP) is the only major funding source dedicated to research in combat and combat-related orthopedic injuries, the largest source of long-term morbidity for injured military personnel. The PRORP crafts investment strategies to address these challenges using award mechanisms such as the Technology Development, Translational Partnership, and the Clinical Trial awards, which emphasize clinical and mature translational research. While industry, including pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device firms, remains the largest funder of clinical trial research, the CDMRP’s niche in this arena is the ability to encourage preventive or therapeutic interventions that are in line with the priorities of the communities affected by the disease.
Training and Career Development
Training the next generation of scientists in both basic and clinical research is instrumental for the advancement of biomedical research. The career development pipeline traditionally proceeds from predoctoral through postdoctoral training to the new or junior faculty level investigator (Figure 2). The CDMRP offers pre- and postdoctoral training award mechanisms in which the research is disease- or condition-specific, and the trainee is named as the principal investigator, thereby providing the trainee with his or her first source of research funding.
The BCRP Postdoctoral Award mechanism is unique in that it provides funding for the research in addition to stipend support. The trainee is expected to have discretion over management of the award, thus providing valuable training as a researcher. In addition to recent doctoral graduates, many CDMRP training mechanisms support recent medical graduates and encourage the training of physician-scientists. For example, the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) supports the training of physicians with clinical duties for a career in prostate cancer research through the physician Research Training Award. At the time of application, the PI must be in the last year of medical residency, must designate a mentor with an established research program, and institutions must provide at least 40% protection of the PI’s time for research.
The PRORP offers a career development award in which active-duty military researchers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, or physician-scientists with < 8 years of clinical or postdoctoral research experience (excluding clinical residency or medical fellowship training) are eligible to apply. The LCRP has offered a promising clinician research award supporting the training of MDs or MD/PhDs with clinical duties and/or responsibilities that are within 5 years of a professional appointment. Each of these physician training mechanisms not only provide support at an early career stage to investigators at DoD or other clinical sites, but also enable physicians to have a career at the forefront of research and clinical practice.
In 2002, the NIH observed that the percentage of competing NIH grants awarded to investigators aged ≤ 35 years declined from 23% in 1980 to < 4% in 2002. To support these young investigators, the NIH introduced the Pathway to Independence Award mechanism, providing several years of mentored support for promising postdoctoral scientists followed by several years of independent support. More recently, the NIH has focused on new investigators by offering more R01 awards to this group. Because securing early concept funding helps pave the way for the larger R01 grant application, increasing the support for early investigators is important for creating a critical threshold of scientists with exceptional talent.
The CDMRP New Investigator Award programs are intended to support scientists in the early stages of their careers through the continued development of promising independent investigators and/or the transition of established investigators. Each of the CDMRP programs has developed variations of the New Investigator Award to meet the goals of the disease- or condition-specific program. The OCRP Ovarian Cancer Academy, which includes both medical doctors and PhD scientists, is one of the more recent and innovative New Investigator Award mechanisms. This academy is an interactive virtual research and training platform that provides intensive mentoring, national networking, and a peer group for junior faculty in a collaborative and interactive environment. Taken together, the CDMRP programs offer unique award mechanisms to support researchers at critical junctures in their careers. The unique qualities and competitiveness of the CDMRP’s disease/condition-focused training awards have supported the early-career foundation for many of today’s leading researchers.