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| Seed Grant Information
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| The Nancy R. Gelman Foundation (NRGF) announces its 2009 Seed Grant Program. We are extremely pleased to fund projects aimed at improving outcomes for women with breast cancer by promoting global improvement in services provided to women with or at risk of breast cancer. All applications must be submitted electronically only, to be received at grants@nrgf.org - do not mail an application. Seed grant amounts will not exceed $1,500 to any one recipient. Please see the Application Instructions for submission details and additional information which is not listed on this web page.
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| The deadline for grant applications to be received by email at grants@nrgf.org is Wednesday, August 5, 2009. The NRGF Medical Advisory Board expects to render its decisions regarding funding on or before Wednesday, September 30, 2009; NRGF officials may contact applicants with suggestions for revision of proposals, including budget revisions, at any time. The total amount disbursed in this or any given year will be determined by the strength of the overall applicant pool, but in past years up to two proposals have been funded, out of a total pool of 17 applications in 2008. An offer of either full or partial funding may be made.
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Projects for which a seed grant may be awarded must:
- Demonstrate a need for start-up, interim, or supplemental funding within the period of October 1, 2009 to September30, 2009.
- Not already be funded by other sources (projects which represent a clear new initiative extending beyond the scope of a currently funded project are permissible).
- Prospectively state an objective outcome measure which will be used to gauge project success.
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This year's grant applications will be evaluated by our Medical Advisory Board using a study section process, in which applications with similar goals are compared to and rated against each other and against proposals from previous years using an NIH-like systematic review template. Elements of the template include:
- Significance: How will this work lead to improved outcomes for patients with breast cancer?
- Approach: Are the methods proposed reasonable and likely to be fruitful?
- Innovation: How is this work new, how likely is it to open up new opportunities for future work?
- Investigators: Is the applicant qualified to perform the work? (This is primarily addressed by the biosketch and letters of support and does not need to be in the 4-page proposal)
- Environment: Does the applicant have the resources available to succeed? (This is primarily addressed by the letters of support and information need not be repeated in the 4-page proposal)
- Multiplier effect: How likely are the results from this project to attract further funding from other sources, and how likely are the results from this project to promote a change nationally or globally in the services provided to women with or at risk of breast cancer?
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Over the past three years, we have identified characteristics common to successful applications, as well as information that, when included, simplifies the process of evaluation. Applicants are strongly encouraged to include the following elements in their proposals.
For basic science (research) proposals:
- Describe in detail the research to be undertaken, its specific aims, and hypotheses to be tested. Relate the work to improving outcomes for women with breast cancer. The work described should be reasonably achievable by the personnel assigned to the project, within the time frame allotted.
- Cite appropriate published or unpublished precedents, and distinguish how the current research represents an advance or innovation. Reference list may not exceed 1 page and is not included in the page limit for the proposal.
- Clearly distinguish experiments that will be supported by the NRGF grant from those supported by other funding. Proposals for a clearly delineated project, where a seed grant of up to $1,500 will either have a clear effect or provide “keystone” funding that will make the difference between a project being pursued or not, tend to be more persuasive. Projects likely to be pursued regardless of funding, or requests for fractional support for a project with a much larger budget, are less likely to be funded.
- Enumerate line items on the budget report to a reasonable extent, including any indirect or overhead costs. Salary support tends to be less persuasive unless it represents clearly protected time to focus on the NRGF project. Similarly, once high-cost line-items (over 20% of total request) are cited, "supplies" may be broken down on a per-time basis according to usual costs for similar research.
- Describe existing institutional infrastructure (hardware and/or personnel) that will be used to support the project.
- Describe objective measures by which the success of the research will be determined, and plans to publicize the results (e.g., peer-reviewed journal publications, presentations at scholarly meetings, etc.)
- Describe (one paragraph) the next phase of the project if successful, and sources from which further funding will be sought based on results of this project.
For community-based proposals:
- Describe in detail the intervention to be undertaken, and its specific goals, or the information to be gathered (for projects designed to gather information).
- For interventional projects, describe and numerically estimate the target population of the intervention. For population-based projects, this could involve using statistics from census or public health department sources or from online sources, such as the Wolfram Alpha knowledge search engine. For health organization-based projects, organizational statistics on how many women are diagnosed with or treated for breast cancer per year may be available. For smaller focus or support groups, the size of the group should be estimated.
- For interventional projects, describe the desired outcome of the intervention and how it will be measured.
- Some outcomes may be measured objectively based on available statistics (e.g., an increase in the number of mammograms performed in the organization's catchment area). Other outcomes may need more active measurements that could require human-subjects approval (e.g., improved mood and coping skills among a group of breast cancer survivors). Numerical goals for outcomes, in light of the size of the target population, are encouraged.
- Because the focus of these grants is “to improve outcomes,” it is critical to measure the most “downstream” outcome accessible within the time frame of the project. For example, although a change in overall survival might not be seen within the one-year time frame, an increase in the number of clinical breast exams performed at a local clinic, or the number of cases of breast cancer diagnosed, could be measurable.
- Because underserved communities often have worse outcomes at baseline, it may be easier to see gains in these populations than in others.
- Describe similar interventions that have been undertaken in the past by your organization or by others, and describe how the current project is new or different from what has been done before, or how it seeks to reproduce or verify earlier results. For screening and outreach interventions, we expect you to show familiarity with relevant health communication literature and explain why your approach is more likely than alternatives to be successful.
- Describe how outcomes will be measured, and how you will disseminate the results of your work so that others may try to duplicate your success or compare their results to yours. This might include presentations to other organizations or to other chapters if your organization is chapter-based or part of a network, or publication of your results and materials online or in print.
- Ultimately, the largest “multiplier effect” for interventional projects comes from making improvements that can be put into practice in many communities. For example, direct funding for mammograms might not be as effective as training outreach workers using a curriculum that could then be adapted easily for other communities. A more compelling grant proposal will demonstrate how you are doing something in a new way, which could then be used to encourage other organizations to adopt your new way, leading to a change in practice on a larger scale.
Additional pointers on grant proposal composition (answers to frequently asked questions):
- Executive summary paragraphs should be modeled after the descriptions of awardee and Honorable Mention projects below.
- Some proposals consist in large part of a description of the applying organization. Our board finds it easier to make decisions about the project if organizational information is focused on describing how the organization is well-qualified to execute the project, and the bulk of the proposal describes how the project will be carried out.
- Remember, the Seed Grant program does not fund operating costs, and the most persuasive proposals will describe how the project will become independent of NRGF funding (e.g., use evidence of seed grant project results to acquire funding from other sources for further development).
- A single individual should be identified as responsible for the overall conduct of the project, and should sign the face page as “applicant”. We will address our decision letter to the applicant, not necessarily to other personnel involved in grant writing. Individuals at an institution should have an institutional sponsor signature (by the writer of the institutional letter of support).
- Proposals involving human or animal research must be approved or declared exempt by an appropriate IRB or IACUC, respectively, before funding decisions are made in late February. Proposals under IRB/IACUC review at the time of submission should be accompanied by an IRB/IACUC letter giving the expected date of review, with a final approval/exemption letter required before funding is disbursed, ideally by September 15, 2009, but in extenuating circumstances a later date may be acceptable.
- Grants to institutions outside the U.S. should include an IRS certification that the institution is permitted to accept grants from U.S. 501(c)3 organizations. Many larger institutions will have such a letter on file with their development offices. Government entities are generally permitted to receive 501(c)3 grants.
- We are unable to provide grants to individuals for their breast cancer treatment.
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| Download Application
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 Download Application (Adobe PDF format)
Download Application Instructions(Adobe PDF format)
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2009 Medical Advisory Board
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Michael A. Gelman, PhD, Chair
Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA
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Chloe Atreya, MD, PhD
University of California-San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
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Navneet Dhillon, MD
University of California-San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
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Carolyn Friel, RPh, PhD
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Worcester, MA
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Joseph M. Langenhan, PhD
Seattle University
Seattle, WA
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Raymond Liu, MD
Kaiser Permanente
San Francisco, CA
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Jane A. McElroy, PhD
University of Missouri School of Medicine
Columbia, MO
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Megan O'Meara, MD
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
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Kellie Rosinski
University of Washington-Seattle
Seattle, WA
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Steven Rosinski MD PhD
University of Washington-Seattle
Seattle, WA
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John Strickler, MD
Duke University
Durham, NC
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Leslie Walker, MD
Sapulpa, OK
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Shelly Wyrick, PT
Oregon Health and Science University
Portland, OR
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| 2008 Seed Grant Recpients
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June Isaacson Kailes, LICSW, MSW
Center for Disability Issues and the Health Professions, Pomona, CA
Universal Access to Mammography
Ms. June Isaacson Kailes, associate director of CDIHP at Western University of the Health Sciences, has a distinguished record of advocacy for individuals with disabilities at both the local and national levels. Women with disabilities currently receive mammograms at significantly lower rates than others. One reason for this disparity may be a lack of accessible mammography equipment for women with disabilities.
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With a 2008 Seed Grant from NRGF, Ms. Kailes and the Breast Health Access for Women with Disabilities collaboration will open a dialogue with manufacturers of mammography equipment and discuss applying principles of universal design to future equipment. Success in this project would potentially result in many thousands of women with disabilities having new access to mammograms, as well as the creation of a model for collaboration between advocates and industry for other accessibility issues related to breast cancer, such as accessible treatment equipment and technologies.
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Prof. Carol Heckman, Ph.D.
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
Cancer Cell Feature Reversion as a Novel Therapeutic Approach to Cancer
Download Prof. Heckman's year-end report (click to download in Adobe PDF format)
Prof. Carol Heckman, the director of the Center for Microscopy and Microanalysis at BGSU, has developed a method for classifying cancer cells based on their appearance under a microscope. Her group has identified a particular enzyme that seems to be important in the transformation from non-cancerous to cancerous cell appearance.
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With a 2008 Seed Grant from NRGF, Prof. Heckman and her colleagues used mass spectrometry to identify the sequences of proteins that are modified by this enzyme. They found two sequences from related proteins that are part of the cellular "skeleton", but with patterns that suggest that there is an intermediate step between the enzyme they had identified and the protein targets they found. These intermediate proteins might become targets for new chemotherapy drugs aimed at disrupting the structural transformations that occur as normal cells become cancer cells. Their next step will be to see if blocking the intermediate proteins interferes with the changes they can observe under the microscope.
The further development of this project could lead to a new class of more effective, less toxic chemotherapeutic agents, increasing the array of options available to breast cancer patients.
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Honorable Mention
Venktesh Shirure
Ohio University, Athens, OH
Characterization of E-Selectin Ligands on Breast Cancer Cells
Dr. Katherine Regan Sterba, PhD
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Understanding Caregiver Support in Survivors
Katherine Sterba, a postdoctoral researcher at UT, is exploring the dynamics in couples where one partner is a breast cancer survivor. She has proposed a qualitative study to describe aspects of the couple as a unit that lead to improved outcomes. Success could lead to development of a couples-therapy intervention to help couples cope with a diagnosis of breast cancer.
Venktesh Shirure, a graduate student at Ohio University, is exploring the factors that cause breast cancer to spread to sites such as bone marrow. He has proposed to look for receptors on breast cancer cells that bind to E-selectin, a component of the lining of blood vessels in the bone marrow. Success could lead to a new target to diagnose, prevent, or treat bone marrow metastasis of breast cancer.
Honorable Mention
Shana Tauai
Hulston Cancer Center/CoxHealth, Springfield, MO
Seminar on Sexuality
Shana Tauai, director of support services at Hulston Cancer Center, has identified sexuality as a key area of concern for women living with breast cancer. She has proposed a half-day seminar with a well-known speaker on the subject, a question-and-answer period, and the opportunity for interpersonal interaction. Success in this project could lead to replication of the intervention and improved well-being for women with breast cancer.
Honorable Mention
A. Gabriella Wernicke, MD
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY
Assessment of Levels of VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 as Potential Predictors of Metastatic Progression in Patients with Early Stage Breast Cancer Undergoing Radiotherapy
Lumpectomy and radiation are frequently used as breast-conserving therapy in women with early-stage breast cancer, but some of these cancers still recur. Two proteins, VEGFR1 and VEGFR2, are being considered as possible contributors to metastasis in breast cancer. Gabriella Wernicke, a junior faculty member at Weill Cornell Medical College, has already demonstrated that levels of these two proteins rise after surgery. She has proposed to study whether levels of these proteins change similarly in response to radiation therapy. Success in this project would lead to a better understanding of how breast cancer spreads and potentially lead to better therapeutic options.
Honorable Mention
Robert B. Saper, MD, MPH
Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA
Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Music Therapy to Improve Quality of Life in Minorities with Breast Cancer
Robert Saper, Director of Integrative Medicine at Boston Medical Center's Department of Family Medicine, has conducted several studies of complementary therapies for symptoms related to cancer and cancer treatment. Music therapy has been shown to reduce stress in middle- to high-income, predominantly white, breast cancer patients. Dr. Saper has proposed a randomized controlled trial of music therapy in an underserved, largely minority population. Success in this project could spur the availability of music therapy to a broader range of patients and improve well-being and reduce stress in underserved women with breast cancer.
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