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Resources for SBIR Grantees

NCI Clinical Assay Development Program (CADP)

The NCI Clinical Assay Development Program (CADP) is requesting project applications from investigators seeking clinical assay validation resources. These resources are designed to assist with the development of assays that may predict therapy response or prognostic behavior of a diagnosed cancer, primarily for use in clinical trials. Approved projects for the NCI CADP will be provided access to the Institute's assay development and validation resources, including project management support.

When applying to the CADP, it is important that investigators define the intended clinical use for the assay for which support is requested. Assays submitted for CADP development services should have been tested on human tissue. As part of the application, investigators are required to provide basic assay protocol(s). Proposals will be reviewed for scientific merit, feasibility, and clinical importance. Click here to access the CADP application.

For more information on the CADP or to submit an application, please visit: http://cadp.cancer.gov/. Please note that this call for applications is not a solicitation for biomarker discovery and is not a grants program.

Application Receipt Dates: October 15, 2012; February 15, 2013; June 15, 2013; October 15, 2013

NCI Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP): Human Biospecimen Resources

  • The Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN) prospectively collects and provides human tissue specimens (malignant, benign, diseased and normal tissues) and pathology report data for use in basic discovery and translational cancer research. The procurement and processing of specimens varies according to the protocol of each individual investigator: fresh, frozen, or chemically-fixed. The CHTN also produces TMAs from multiple tissue types to study cancer and other diseases. Isolation and distribution of the nucleic acids from the CHTN-procured specimens can also be performed to serve the investigator's interest: http://www.chtn.nci.nih.gov.
  • Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP) Tissue Microarrays (TMAs): http://cdp.nci.nih.gov/tma.html
    1. Breast Cancer Progression and Prognostic TMAs were constructed using tissue and associated pathological and clinical outcome data from the Cooperative Breast Cancer Tissue Resource (CBCTR). The CDP Progression TMA is designed to permit comparisons of biomarker expression across three stages of disease (node-negative, node positive and metastatic). The CDP Prognostic TMA is designed for examination of biomarkers and correlation with survival and recurrence outcomes in stage I, II and III breast cancer. Both TMAs were designed to ensure high statistical power for evaluation and validation of breast cancer biomarkers.
    2. Melanoma Progression TMA consists of 273 tissue specimens containing nevi, primary melanomas, metastatic melanoma to the lymph node, and visceral and dermal metastatic melanoma. This TMA is designed to investigate differences in expression of markers in various stages of melanoma progression and should be used as a screening array.
    3. Colon Cancer Progression-Prognostic TMA has over 350 primary colon cancers and 100 control tissues and is designed for examination of associations of markers with tumor stage, clinical outcome, and other clinico-pathological variables in Stage I-IV colon cancer.
  • The NCI Cooperative Group Banks Associated with Large Phase II and Phase III Clinical Trials have banked tumor specimens from large numbers of uniformly treated cancer patients with a variety of malignancies. Each group (ACOSOG, CALGB, COG, ECOG, GOG, NCCTG, NCIC-CTG, NSABP, RTOG, and SWOG) has a review process for research proposals. If proposals receive favorable reviews, specimens with clinical, treatment, and outcome data can be made available to researchers through collaborative arrangements. These well annotated specimens are most useful for clinical correlative studies in randomized uniformly treated patient populations.
  • Interested investigators may visit the *NCI Specimen Resource Locator Website* at http://pluto3.nci.nih.gov/tissue/default.htm or contact the NCI Tissue Expediter at tissexp@mail.nih.gov.

 

*NCI Specimen Resource Locator is a searchable database that helps researchers locate specimens for research. The database includes resources such as: tissue banks and tissue procurement services with access to normal, benign, pre-cancerous and/or cancerous human tissue: http://pluto3.nci.nih.gov/tissue/default.htm.

NCI Cancer Imaging Program: The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA)

The NCI Cancer Imaging Program supports two archives of medical images of cancer accessible for public download. All images contained in the archives are stored in DICOM file format.

  • The National Biomedical Imaging Archive (NBIA) is available at http://imaging.nci.nih.gov. The NBIA contains two CT Colonography collections and multiple collections from the Reference Image Database to Evaluate Therapy Response (RIDER).
  • The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) is available at http://cancerimagingarchive.net. The TCIA contains the Lung Image Database Consortium image collection and a growing set of image collections linked to cases analyzed by The Cancer Genome Atlas, among others.