Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D.; S.P. Hicks Endowed Professor of Pathology - Director, Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, University of Michigan:

Thank you Joy for that inspirational talk and making sure that us as researchers really focus in on the end game of cancer. As you heard previously, my laboratory has received considerable support from the Department of Defense. I've been involved with the Department of Defense as a grantee, as a peer reviewer, as an ad hoc member of their integration panel as well as a mentor over the last few years. So the Department of Defense has certainly impacted much of the research that has been going on in my laboratory spanning from prostate cancer to breast cancer. So this just timelines some of the awards, some of the research awards that I've received through Department of Defense funding, beginning with one of the first awards early in my career - an Idea Development Award, really which allowed us to focus in on epigenetic analyses. In 2005, we really got involved in awards that involved training programs and trainees and changed directions in the area of proteomics and integrating different types of data. So I think one sort of take home point is to always try to incorporate innovation and identifying fields that you feel will be changing directions and thinking about things in different ways to develop proposals.

Subsequently, we received an Idea Development Award in a new area in the laboratory at the time on this molecule called SPINK1. We had previously been focused on X-gene fusions or translocations in prostate cancer and identified this molecule SPINK1 as being elevated in those that do not harbor X-gene fusion, and this award sparked our investment in this particular project. And what's gratifying about this is that we have developed now a monoclonal antibody against SPINK1 that potentially has therapeutic efficacy at least in mouse models that we hope to translate into humans and we are close to potentially licensing this technology. So this is certainly one area-a new area that was inspired by Department of Defense funding.

More recently, we have received an Era of Hope Scholar Award which you heard about earlier and this is actually in the breast cancer program. I'm probably best known for our work in prostate cancer, and this allowed us now to shift gears a bit and take advantage of what we've learned in prostate cancer and leverage that now into the area of breast cancer looking for driving gene fusions and translocations and driving mutations in general in the context of breast cancer. And there are a lot of parallels between breast cancer and prostate cancer that we can begin to leverage. So that sort of describes some of the funding that my laboratory or that I received through the Department of Defense.

Now talking, I think the biggest impact actually has been the funding that my trainees have received through the Department of Defense, and here is listed the various trainees in my group that have received various Department of Defense funding. From predoctoral awards all the way up to new investigator awards, sort of characterizes the spectrum of types of awards that you could receive through the Department of Defense, and there are many points in your career that you could come to the Department of Defense and apply.

The other thing that I think that's important or that is one of the distinguishing features I believe of the Department of Defense program is also that predoctoral students as well as postdoctoral students can write a proposal and be the principal investigator of that proposal. That's relatively rare in the context of these grant proposals. So I think that allows them to really take ownership of a particular proposal as well as have the experience, the early experience, in a sheltered environment of learning how to write grants and the aspects that go along with that. Now just to give you some vignettes of various trainees that have gone through my laboratory that have been impacted by awards given by the Department of Defense. Here we have Arun Sreekumar who's done extraordinarily well. He received initially a postdoctoral award from the Department of Defense. He's now moved on into an independent faculty position at the Medical College of Georgia where he is studying the metabolomics of cancer. Since then, he's received a number of funding sources from the NIH, including R21 grants and so forth. And so now he's established himself in the area of metabolomics and cancer.

Another example, this happens to be again the prostate program looking at a physician/scientist training program, and this is Felix Feng. He's actually a radiation oncology resident in the laboratory. And what Felix ... what this has allowed us to do is sort of begin to train the next generation of physician/scientists that are going to translate some of the discoveries that have been made in my laboratory now into clinical impact. And Felix Feng is really focused on taking advantage of some of those discoveries and understanding those discoveries in the context of radiation therapy.

And then the last example I'll leave you with is a new investigator award that Jindan Yu received. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory and she applied for a new investigator award, and she was auditioning into an independent faculty position at Northwestern University. And so I think that this has tremendously impacted her career as well. I believe it was one of her first funding sources.

And so, I think some strategies for success that you've heard a lot of good examples today I think is really focusing on improving the patient's situation - so really focusing on the translational impact, really getting at the end game of how's your work going to be translated into something that's going to impact the lives of patients. I think that is an important component of the Department of Defense funding mechanism. Clearly explain the relevance to the lay audience; I think that of course is very important. The idea is not to just shorten your technical abstract and then paste that into the lay abstract section - that generally doesn't work in that consumer advocates may not appreciate your research and even scientists that are outside your field are not going to appreciate your research if you don't take those parts of your proposal seriously. Innovation, of course, as we've mentioned multiple times is a critically important component of this grant. Submitting this, as you've heard, the program application is a moving target every year so you have to carefully read the program announcement. And of course this would be generally applicable to any type of grant that you're working on but to improve grantsmanship by way of reviewing your colleagues' grants and having them review yours beforehand. More importantly, potentially getting examples of previously funded DoD awards is a good way to start, but of course remembering that the application changes from year to year and making sure you tune your application based on the latest program announcement and, of course, proposing projects that are feasible in the period of time that you've proposed. And finally just to end with a picture of the individuals in the Michigan Center for Translation Pathology that I lead. This includes members of the team as well as their families at a MCTP picnic. Thank you.