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NIH
NIH Challenge Grant Program
Application submission date: April 27, 2009
NIH has received new funds for Fiscal Years (FYs) 2009 and 2010 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). NIH has designated at least $200 million for a new initiative called NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/challenge_award/), contingent upon the submission of a sufficient number of scientifically meritorious applications. In addition, Recovery Act funds allocated to NIH specifically for comparative effectiveness research (CER) may be available to support additional grants. Projects receiving these funds will need to meet this definition of CER: "a rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such a study may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or it may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy."
Here are a sample topic from the Challenge Grant Application book.
04-CA-115 Comparative Effectiveness of Computer Assisted Diagnostic Devices. For over a decade, Computer Assisted Diagnostic devices have been developed to aid clinicians in a variety of ways. Many, but by no means all, of these devices have been developed for use with imaging technologies. This supplement proposes studies regarding comparisons between CAD devices and alternative diagnostic approaches. Some of these CAD devices are intended to remove large numbers of likely negative cases to make the radiologists' time more efficient. Others are used to point to regions of an image for special attention. These Computer Assisted Diagnostic devices have been approved by the US FDA with varying degrees of evidence depending on the particular clinical application. There are opportunities to do short term trials (which can be simulated with outcomes and do not need to wait for clinical course to occur) that compare various CAD algorithms to standard of care, to double reading, and to expert panel approaches. Each project would have three phases: Review the clinical and statistical evidence used to place the product on the market and any evidence accrued since marketing application. Develop a standard protocol and data system (unless data already exist) that can be used for future studies of other algorithms or other was of using imaging data to optimize diagnosis. Perform a head-to-head comparison of CAD with standard of care, with double reading, and with an expert panel approach. NCI Contact: Dr. Martin Brown, 301-496-5716, brownm@dcpcepn.nci.nih.gov

A suggestion is to download the Challenge Grant Application document and search for topics of interest to you and your group.
URL for Challenge Grant Application: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/challenge_award/Omnibus.pdf
NIH Guide Announcement: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-09-003.html

CIP Announcements
CIP DCIDE PROGRAM
The Cancer Imaging Program of the NCIrequests submissions for its Development of Clinical Imaging Drugs and Enhancers (DCIDE) initiative. The goal is the rapid movement of promising, novel cancer imaging enhancers or molecular probes from the laboratory to proof-of-principle clinical trials. See the web site for details.
URL:http://imaging.cancer.gov/programsandresources/specializedinitiatives/dcide

GUEST AUTHOR OPPORTUNITIES IN THE NIH MICAD DATABASE
The Molecular Imaging and Contrast Agent Database (MICAD) program has been developed as a key component of the NIH Molecular Imaging Roadmap to provide freely accessible online scientific information on in vivo molecular imaging and contrast agents. To accelerate expansion of the database to include all published agents, the MICAD program has implemented a procedure for members of the imaging community to write and submit entries (chapters) as guest authors to the database. All members of the imaging community are encouraged to consider this guest author opportunities. For further information, please contact the MICAD staff at micad@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Individual guest authors will be provide with detailed instructions, style guidelines, and a chapter template. The name of the contributing author(s) will be acknowledged and included in the MICAD online publication.
URL: http://micad.nih.gov
URL: http://bookshelf.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bookres.fcgi/micad/infoguest.html)