Up for a Challenge? (U4C)

Deadline: 2016-01-15
Award: $30,000

In order to stimulate innovation, the Epidemiology and Genomic Research Program (EGRP) within the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) is launching a Challenge to inspire novel cross-disciplinary approaches to more fully decipher the genomic basis of breast cancer, called "Up For A Challenge (U4C) – Stimulating Innovation in Breast Cancer Genetic Epidemiology" using the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Reauthorization Act of 2010.

The goal of this Challenge is to use innovative approaches to identify novel pathways—including new genes or combinations of genes, genetic variants, or sets of genomic features—involved in breast cancer susceptibility in order to generate new biological hypotheses. Several data sets have been gathered and will be made available for use in the Challenge, some of these will be released for the first time. In addition, Challenge participants will be free to use any other publicly available data sets for the purposes of developing and applying methods for identification of the novel pathways.

Specifically, through this Challenge, EGRP aims to advance innovation in the field of genetic epidemiology by providing further insight into the genetic contribution to breast cancer, increasing the amount and diversity of minds tackling a tough scientific problem, and making breast cancer genetic epidemiologic data more widely available.