This Notice of Special Interest informs current National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant awardees that NCI is interested in administrative supplement applications that seek to address gaps in knowledge pertaining to the effects of a cancer diagnosis and its treatment on aging trajectories among adult cancer survivors (including adult survivors of pediatric cancers).

With the advent of successful screening strategies and more effective treatments, cancer survivors are now living longer. However, this success has come with a cost -- the treatments that cancer survivors are administered have been shown in laboratory studies to cause cell damage through many of the same mechanisms that are thought to underlie the normal aging process. Thus, the treatments that spare cancer survivors from mortality related to their cancer may adversely alter their aging trajectory, putting the cancer survivor at risk for a broad spectrum of aging-related health conditions at a younger age than would occur with the normal aging process. While this is biologically plausible, there is a paucity of studies that have examined whether the molecular and cellular changes resulting from treatment toxicity change a cancer survivor’s aging trajectory.

NCI currently supports a scientifically diverse cancer survivorship grant portfolio, including a number of cancer survivor cohort studies and intervention trials that follow individuals diagnosed with cancer over time to examine the effects of treatment, and other factors, on cancer outcomes (e.g. survival, recurrence, late- and long-term adverse events). Often, the outcome data in these cancer survivor studies do not include data related to aging (e.g., frailty, physical functioning). Through this administrative supplement opportunity, NCI expects that applicants will strengthen their currently funded aims by collecting information on cancer, cancer treatment, and/or aging-related endpoints (including those measured in biospecimens) to address existing gaps in knowledge regarding cancer and aging trajectories. The supplemental funding request be for work that enhances the research within the scope of the parent award by relating it to the aging-related effects of cancer and its treatments.

NCI encourages collaborative research among transdisciplinary research teams that include (but are not limited to) epidemiologists, clinical trialists, basic scientists, and behavioral and social scientists. NCI also encourages data sharing and the integration of existing data resources to enable novel approaches to address the complex nature of the longitudinal data needed to examine aging trajectories.

In the context of this opportunity, NCI’s interests include, but are not limited to:

• Collection and analysis of new data [including linkages to other relevant databases (e.g., electronic medical records), or biomarker data from already collected biospecimens] that will augment existing study data to allow for the examination of the effect of cancer and cancer treatments on aging;
• Validation of a biomarker of aging in adult cancer survivors;
• Development or validation of a novel tool, clinical measure, or questionnaire to measure aging in adult cancer survivors on a population level; and
• Development of a novel statistical method or technique to analyze complex longitudinally collected aging-related data.

Eligible Individuals (Program Director/Principal Investigator):

Individual(s) must hold an active eligible NCI grant (R01, U01, R37, P01, U19, or UM1). For supplements to parent awards that include multiple program directors (PDs)/principal investigators (PIs), the supplement may be requested by any or all of the PDs/PIs (in accordance with the existing leadership plan) and submitted by the awardee institution of the parent award.

Description of circumstances for which administrative supplements are available.

Application and Submission Information

Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity or its subsequent reissued equivalent.

• PA-18-591 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-18-591 must be followed, with the following additions:

• Application Due Date:Submissions must be received by May 15, 2020,at 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization for FY 2020 funding.
• For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-CA-20-037 (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.
• Applicantsshouldbegin the supplement application abstract by stating This application is being submitted in response to theNotice of Special Interest (NOSI) identified as NOT-CA-20-037.
• Budget and Period of Support:
  • The budget should not exceed $150,000 in total costs.
  • At least one full year on the parent grant must remain at the time of funding. The application budget is limited to 1 year only. Funds from this supplement must be expended within 12 months of the supplement award issue date.
  • Requests for no-cost extensions on the parent grant to accommodate a supplement will not be permitted.
  • Salary support for the PI(s) and collaborators may be considered with strong justification. Salary for general study oversight is not permitted.
• The Research Strategy section should not exceed 5 pages. The Research Strategy should summarize the activities of the parent grant that encompass those proposed in the supplemental request and describe how those activities are proposed for augmentation and/or enhancement in the supplemental request by describing:

• The supplement's purpose;
• The relationship of the supplement request to the parent grant;
• How the application provides additional value to the underlying research (parent grant) of the PD(s)/PI(s) and the collaborating investigators; and
• The activities to be covered by the supplemental funding, including a timeline for completion.

• NCI requires applicants to submit electronically through Grants.gov. All applications (including those for multi-project activity codes) must be submitted electronically using a single-project application form package with the Competition ID of FORMS-E-ADMINSUPP-RESEARCH
• The process for Streamlined Submissions using the eRA Commons cannot be used for this initiative.

Applicants should also inform Dr. Lisa Gallicchio (email: lisa.gallicchio@nih.gov) of the submission to ensure correct routing.

Administrative Review Process:

NCI will conduct administrative reviews of applications submitted to this FOA and will support the most meritorious applications submitted for consideration, based upon availability of funds.

NCI staff will consider the ability of the proposed supplement activities to increase or preserve the parent award’s overall impact within the original scope of the award. Primary considerations include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Scientific merit of the proposed study;
• Potential of the project to fill a gap in the field of cancer and aging trajectories;
• Potential of the proposed project to add to the scientific knowledge regarding the effects of cancer and its treatment on aging; and
• Innovation of the research.

Additional selection factors include:

• Relevance of the proposed study to the parent grant;
• Adequate progress of the parent grant appropriate to the current stage of the project;
• Appropriate and well-described plan to accomplish goals within the time frame proposed;
• Expertise of the research team to conduct and achieve the goals of the supplement aims;
• Appropriateness of the budgets in consideration of the study proposed and the research environment for the scientific projects; and
• Feasibility of the project as proposed.