Funding Opportunities | Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center

The Intramural Funding Program (IFP) enables Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center to advance its mission to reduce the burden of cancer in its catchment area by supporting strategically aligned innovative research. IFP funds, which come from the CCSG, the State of Florida, the University of Miami, and philanthropy, facilitate impactful collaborations, advance transdisciplinary, translational, and team science research and accelerate clinical trial development. The program’s success is measured by the generation of peer reviewed funding, publications, patent applications, and externally funded clinical trials.

Sylvester’s IFP, is overseen by the Deputy Director, Dr. Antonio Iavarone, M.D., and a team which uses well-established, rigorous processes for soliciting, reviewing, awarding, and tracking research outcomes. Divya Subramonian, PhD (Sr. Manager, IFP) and Jorge Vázquez (Executive Director, Research Operations) provide strategic and administrative support for the effective implementation of the IFP.

For more information, including questions, please contact us at SylvesterIFP@med.miami.edu.

Divya Subramonian, PhD, Sr. Manager, IFP
Email: dxs4643@med.miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-0596

Jorge L. Vázquez, Executive Director, Research Operations
Email: jorgevazquez@med.miami.edu
Phone: 305-243-5708

Application and Award Announcement Dates

	Cycle I	Cycle II
RFA Launch	February	July
Applications Due	April	October
Merit Review	April	November
Study Sections	May	December
Award Selection	May	January
NOAs Issued	June	January
Earliest Anticipated Start	July	February

Review the specific request for applications (RFA) for deadline information. Not all RFAs are available in all cycles.

IFP Award Categories

For the full-text RFAs and to apply please visit our Sylvester InfoReady site:

Transdisciplinary Science Pilot Award

This funding opportunity is designed to fund collaborations bringing together investigators from diverse and distinct disciplines, promoting the highest level of scientific discovery and translation that serves patients in our catchment area. Projects will be evaluated based on their relevance to the catchment area, interdisciplinary nature, potential impact, and potential for extramural funding. PI Teams with at least one PI outside the medical campus (i.e., RSMAES and/or Coral Gables) will be prioritized. PIs funded by this project are expected to apply for NIH level peer-reviewed extramural funding within two (2) years of receipt.

Translational Science Pilot Award

This funding opportunity seeks to translate cancer research projects from the lab/population-based study into the clinic or the reverse. This funding opportunity is designed to fund highly innovative research that will: (1) stimulate translational cancer research, (2) encourage new multidisciplinary collaborations and (3) generate pilot data that can lead to an extramurally funded project in cancer research. Projects will be evaluated based on their relevance and potential impact on the catchment area and potential for extramural funding. PIs with research projects that are pre-clinical and ready to be translated into an Investigator Initiated Study and/or correlative studies based on newly developed biomarkers or targets are highly encouraged to apply.

Team Science Award

This funding mechanism supports groups of investigators working as part of a multidisciplinary research team that plans on submitting a large cancer-related multi-PI grant (e.g., P01, SPORE) within one to two years of the award.

NCI/NIH Boost Award

This award provides supplemental funding to recently awarded NCI/NIH awards. It is designed to restore the budgets of funded proposals, which allows the research to proceed at its intended pace. Over time, these funds should lead to higher rates of successful NCI/NIH grant renewals and other awards.

NCI/NIH Catalyst Award

This award promotes the successful resubmission of NIH/NCI applications that have received nearly fundable scores from an NIH study section. Awards are given to investigators upon receipt of the percentile ranking of the Cancer Center member’s grant application. Recipients of these awards are required to resubmit a revised application within one year of notification that the initial grant application was not funded.

Sylvester Bridge Funding Award

This funding mechanism assists Cancer Center members in maintaining their research activities in the event of a lapse in extramural funding based on their needs over a one-year period. Applicants must have applied or be applying for continuation of extramural funding for the application to be eligible.

Clinical Trial Acceleration Award

The goal of this funding mechanism is to support highly innovative and programmatically important investigator-initiated, national, or industry-sponsored clinical trials, as well as innovative translational studies that have the promise of leading to new clinical trial concepts. The funding opportunity includes three categories: (1) Investigator Initiated Studies (IIS) focused on innovative, multi-disciplinary projects; (2) Gap Funding (GAP) for treatment trials that have a gap between sponsor funding and the SCCC budget estimate; and (3) Translational Funding (TRL) for correlative studies linked to a clinical trial and/or which have promise of being the foundation for an IIS. Prioritization will be given to trials which are catchment area relevant, programmatically aligned or led by a junior faculty.

Yanet S. Harris Fellowship Award

This award is a result of a generous gift that created the Yanet S. Harris Fellowship Endowment Fund at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. The purpose is to support innovative cancer research projects conducted by fellows at Sylvester at the beginning of their oncology careers.

FACCA Pilot Awards

The purpose of this Florida Academic Cancer Center Alliance (FACCA) Funding Opportunity is to support scientific collaborations across four Florida cancer centers – Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Moffitt Cancer Center and UF Health Cancer Center and Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. Focus areas are Cancer & Aging, Cancer Prevention, Care Delivery & Survivorship, Metabolism, Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy and Infection and Cancer.

American Cancer Society (ACS) Institutional Research Grant (IRG) Pilot Awards

This competition is the result of an ACS Institutional Research Grant to the University of Miami whose purpose is to support early career faculty and encourage independent cancer research. This funding provides “seed money” to early-career investigators who have no current peer-reviewed research grant support, with the goals of encouraging cancer research and serving as a catalyst for the submission of national research grants.

Community Partnerships in Advancing Cancer Care Pilot Award

This is a funding opportunity that focuses on uniting Sylvester faculty members and community stakeholders to pursue collaborative science that will advance cancer care across the cancer continuum. This grant opportunity supports research that uses empirical evidence and/or community input to organize the focus of inquiry. Research should draw from local or state data and other relevant information to address barriers to cancer care in the target geography. Applicants who identify projects within the Sylvester catchment area will be highly considered. Proposals that involve community participation are given priority, as having stakeholder input throughout the research process is essential for advancing Sylvester’s commitment to the CA and mission to advance cancer care for everyone.

For the full-text RFAs and to apply please visit our Sylvester InfoReady site:

For more information, please contact us at SylvesterIFP@med.miami.edu.