- Guidelines
INTERNAL NOMINATION REVIEW MATERIALS:
- NIH Biosketch & Other Support from SciENcv
- Letter of Intent (one-page)
- Research plan and impact and innovation statement (one-page maximum) including title, research plan including specific aims and research goals, how this will increase our understanding of breast cancer and lead to advances in the field and/or breast cancer care, and the project’s significance/potential impact to breast cancer patients, if successful. See guidelines under additional documents for details. Please include name of lead mentor.
GRANT TERMS: Applicants/Primary Investigators (PIs) may request funding of up to $150,000 per year (combined direct and indirect costs) for up to three years ($450,000).
CAREER CATALYST RESEARCH GRANT OVERVIEW:
Applicants must be Early Career Investigators who currently hold a faculty appointment or have a formal offer letter from the Institution that confirms position and start date by the Application due date (October 5, 2026) and have not held any faculty appointment, including non-tenure and tenure track appointments combined, for more than a total of 6 years by the Application due date (October 5, 2026). All positions considered as “Faculty” positions by the Applicant/PIs institution (or prior institution) count towards the 6-year limit. This may include positions such as Instructor, Research Fellow, or other non-tenure track faculty positions as appropriate. This is a limited submission opportunity: each institution may nominate up to two applicants for this funding opportunity.
Research projects must be hypothesis-driven, breast cancer-focused studies. They may be considered basic, translational, clinical and/or population science in nature and should align with Komen’s research priorities and mission to save lives from breast cancer. Komen’s research priorities are conquering metastatic and aggressive breast cancers, advancing personalized breast cancer care throughout the continuum of care, and improving health outcomes for everyone impacted by breast cancer. Metastatic breast cancer-focused studies may include, but are not limited to, the development of novel treatment strategies for existing metastatic disease, strategies to prevent or arrest metastasis and late recurrence, and innovative approaches to detect new or recurrent metastatic breast cancer. Precision medicine-focused studies aim to identify the most effective and appropriate strategies to treat, detect, diagnose, and prevent disease based on genomic, biological, environmental, economic, lifestyle and social characteristics. Applications focused on improving health outcomes may expand our understanding of the biological, behavioral, social, and systems contributors to disparities in breast cancer care and outcomes and lead to new ways to treat breast cancer and/or novel approaches to improve access and utilization of timely, high quality breast cancer care. Applications that leverage data science (includes artificial intelligence and other analytical methods applied to data aggregated from multiple sources, such as electronic health records, other clinical data, administrative databases, large data repositories, genomics and other -omics data, etc.) are also encouraged.
Komen believes that diversity in research is essential to expand our knowledge of breast cancer, advance breast cancer care and improve outcomes for everyone. We are committed to supporting a diverse workforce; research environments that encourage a wide range of views, expertise, and experiences; and research studies that include participants who are representative of all people impacted by breast cancer to fuel innovation and scientific discoveries that can benefit all.
Letters of Intent that are not hypothesis-driven, breast cancer-focused studies as described above, will be administratively withdrawn from consideration for a full Application submission without an opportunity for appeal. Applicants/PIs may only submit ONE Letter of Intent for this funding opportunity.
ELIGIBILITY:
• Must be nominated by the Institution’s Office of Sponsored Programs, Grants Office or equivalent. This is a limited submission opportunity, and the applicant/PI cannot self-nominate. This internal call for interest will ensure this requirement.
• Must have a doctoral degree, such as M.D., Ph.D., Dr.P.H., D.O., or equivalent.
• Must currently hold a full-time faculty appointment or have a formal offer letter from the Institution that confirms position and start date by the Application due date (October 5, 2026), documented by the Applicant/PI Biosketch and Letter of Institutional Support.
• Must not have held any faculty appointment, including non-tenure and tenure track appointments combined, for more than a total of 6 years by the Application due date (October 5, 2026), documented by the Applicant/PI Biosketch and Letter of Institutional Support. All positions that are considered as “Faculty” positions by the Applicant/PI’s institution (or prior institution) count towards the 6-year limit. This may include positions such as Instructor, Research Fellow, or other non-tenure track faculty positions as appropriate. All faculty positions and terms must be verified by the Letter of Institutional Support which must also include information regarding a pathway to independence if the applicant is not already leading their own research lab.
• Must not simultaneously hold any other Grant awarded by Susan G. Komen.
• Must not currently be or have been a Principal Investigator on an existing NIH R01 grant or their equivalent as of the date of Award Notification (on or around April 15, 2027).
• Must conduct the proposed research and training at the Lead Mentor’s U.S. based institution.
• Must have adequate space and facilities to conduct the proposed research and must be able to devote at least 75% of full-time effort to breast cancer research and activities, i.e., protected research time.
• Must ensure that all past and current Komen-funded Grants are up to date and in compliance with all Komen requirements; e.g., progress and financial report submissions, IRB (Institutional Review Boards) approvals, etc. by the Letter of Intent due date (July 29, 2026), if applicable.
• Is not required to be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• May only submit ONE LOI/Application in response to this Announcement.
Please continue to attachments for more information.