DoD Melanoma, Team Science Award | W81XWH 19 MRP TSA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 19 MRP TSA

The Department of Defense, through the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA), offered the FY19 Melanoma Research Program (MRP) Team Science Award (TSA) to fund hypothesis-driven melanoma studies that directly respond to the program's overarching FY19 MRP Challenge Statement and align with at least one required FY19 MRP Focus Area. The core purpose of this opportunity is to push melanoma research forward by requiring a true multidisciplinary team approach, where investigators from different fields combine their expertise to create a single, integrated research project that would not be achievable through separate, independent efforts. In other words, the emphasis is not just on collaboration in name, but on a clearly defined scientific synergy that accelerates progress by merging distinct perspectives, methods, and skill sets.

A defining feature of the TSA mechanism is its team structure and application format. The investigators must jointly design one shared project, but each partnering investigator is treated as a Principal Investigator (PI) and must submit a separate application. Each PI would be the named PI on their own individual award, even though the science is intended to function as one coordinated project. For applicants, this means the proposal needs to spell out how the work is divided and integrated across the team, what each PI uniquely contributes, and how the combined approach fills critical knowledge gaps in melanoma. Reviewers would be looking for evidence that the team composition is intentional and complementary, not redundant, and that the project's success depends on the interaction among disciplines.

The scope is broad across the melanoma research spectrum so long as the work is hypothesis-driven and tied to the FY19 MRP Challenge Statement and Focus Areas. The program allows research that uses animal models, human subjects, and human anatomical substances, and it also allows the development or use of relevant preclinical models when that is necessary to accomplish the aims. At the same time, several boundaries are clearly stated. The TSA is not meant to support research centered on established late-stage disease models, and it is not intended to evaluate the clinical utility of PD-1 in combination with other therapeutics. Projects involving non-melanoma skin cancers are explicitly prohibited under this program. Clinical trials are not allowed, which places the work primarily in basic, translational, and preclinical domains rather than interventional clinical testing.

The opportunity also limits certain technology-heavy approaches when they are the primary thrust of the work. It states that the TSA is not intended to support high-throughput screenings or large-scale sequencing efforts as the main activity. This does not necessarily mean such methods could never appear as supporting tools, but it signals that the program is prioritizing focused, hypothesis-driven mechanistic or translational studies over discovery efforts dominated by broad, untargeted "omics" or screening pipelines.

Administratively, this opportunity was listed as a discretionary funding opportunity under the Department of Defense (Department of the Army, USAMRAA), with funding instruments including grants and cooperative agreements. It carried the funding opportunity number W81XWH-19-MRP-TSA and CFDA 12.420. Eligibility was described as unrestricted (open to any type of entity), subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the full announcement. The posting date was May 16, 2019, with an original closing date of October 23, 2019. The notice anticipated approximately two awards, and the award ceiling was listed as 0 in the source data, which typically indicates that the maximum funding level was not specified in that particular summary field and would need to be confirmed in the full program announcement or related budget guidance.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Melanoma, Team Science Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 16, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 23, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 19 MRP TSA

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