Details
| Opportunity Name | Combination therapies against cancer: New opportunities for translational research |
| Agency | Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) |
| Value | Up to $150,000 |
| Indirect Costs | Ineligible |
| Duration | Up to 3 years |
Deadlines
Pre-proposal
| Pre-proposal due to FSc RO at sciapps@yorku.ca for full review | 06-20-2024 |
| Pre-proposal and fully signed ORS checklist due to FSc RO at sciapps@yorku.ca for mandatory review | 06-27-2024 |
| Pre-proposal and fully signed ORS checklist due at ORS for mandatory review | 07-03-2024, by 10:00AM |
| Pre-proposal due at agency | 07-05-2024, by 12:00PM (CEST) |
Final application
| Application due to FSc RO at sciapps@yorku.ca for full review | 11-15-2024 |
| Application and fully signed ORS checklist due to FSc RO at sciapps@yorku.ca for mandatory review | 11-22-2024 |
| Final application and fully signed ORS checklist due at ORS for mandatory review | 11-27-2024, by 10:00AM |
| Application due at agency | 11-29-2024, by 12:00PM (CEST) |
Objective
To improve the efficacy of personalized treatment of cancer patients through the development of new combinatorial treatment strategies, based on a better understanding of drug mechanistic functions and of their impact on the disease course.
Proposals will have to cover only one of three specific aims:
Aim 1) Development of new tumour derived models to test new drug combination therapies. Isolation and characterization of tumour cells/tumour-infiltrating immune/stromal cells for in vitro studies (3D culture systems; patient-derived organoids; PDX-derived primary cultures). These models should be a suitable tool to test new drug combinations or genetic perturbations to demonstrate the feasibility and applicability in terms of reproducibility and testing time (the faster the better) to this aim.
Aim 2) Design and development of high-throughput drug combination screening platforms to test new combination therapies.This aim should include and comprise in the platform design to test combination therapies: primary cell cultures derived from patients, should be able to give rapid assessment of novel drugs, drug combinations or with radiotherapy combination at the individual patient level, combine genomic information, computational tools to predict drug responses for individual cancer patients. Protocols for dose response matrix drug combination assays, as well as computational tools to facilitate the plate design and synergy modelling, development of tailored software tools for high-throughput drug combination scoring.
Aim 3)Use of immunotherapy and radiotherapy combinations strategies to overcome drug resistance.Radiotherapy can provoke a systemic immune response (due to abscopal effect) which gives a strong rationale for the combination of radio and immunotherapy. This aim should explore synergistic effect of radiation (including hypofractionated RT, multi-site radiation, low-dose radiation, new radiation technologies such as FLASH RT, proton RT), with checkpoint inhibitors, characterize the effect on the immune cells including the molecular mechanism and possible immune response biomarkers.
Eligibility
Each research consortium must involve a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of six (6) partners (comprising the project coordinator) eligible for funding, coming from at least three (3) different countries whose funders participate in the call.
- In order to strengthen the European translational cancer research area, a wide inclusion of research teams from all the countries/regions participating in the call is encouraged, therefore the maximum number of partners can be increased up to seven (7) if they include one partner from the following participating countries: Hungary (decision pending), Latvia, Slovakia and Türkiye.
- It is mandatory to integrate at least one early-career researcher (ECR) as principal investigator in a consortium and this has to be clearly indicated in the proposal.
For further details on eligibility criteria, please consult TRANSCAN-3 JTC 2024 Call. Researchers in Canada are strongly encouraged to apply.
How to Apply
York University researchers are reminded that all applications for external research funding, including Letters of Intent, must be reviewed and approved by the Office of Research Services before they are submitted to the granting agency. For internal approval, the application must be accompanied by a completed ORS Checklist, which requires the Dean’s signature. Please send the complete application, with the finalized budget and a completed ORS checklist to sciapps@yorku.ca, five days prior to agency deadline.
ORS is accepting electronic applications – the process is outlined here.