The MBRCC has an NIH P20 grant  (P20 RR16440) ‘CoBRE’ grant or Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, entitled, “CoBRE for Cancer and Signal Transduction” (PI: Laura F. Gibson, Ph.D.).  The goal of the CoBRE grant was, in part, to build our basic research base in the MBRCC and to provide additional support for core facilities to serve both CoBRE investigators as well as others throughout the HSC and at other partner campuses.  During the initial phase of the grant several junior faculty members were supported, while core facilities were initiated in Proteomics and Biostatistics, as well as ongoing support provided for the Flow Cytometry Core.  This support was capitalized upon by senior investigators as well for new and renewal R01 projects.  Phase I of the CoBRE grant (2001-2006) was designed to promote mentorship and research independence of junior faculty members.  The CoBRE grant provided $1.5M dollars/year annual direct support.  To garner CoBRE support junior faculty members wrote a 15-page grant in the style of an R01, which was reviewed internally and by our external advisors.  Grants selected for funding were awarded to junior facuFlty at approximately $200,000/yr and they were given a 3-year commitment for funding, assuming that they made good progress towards extramural support (2 years if progress was poor; and 4 years if they were getting close).  Subsequently, the faculty member wrote an R01 on their research project and if funded, they were graduated from the CoBRE grant and the CoBRE internal and external advisors would select a new proposal to support from the junior faculty applicant pool.  The remaining $500,000 was used to support 3 core facilities and an administrative core that provided oversight and also had some money for recruitment.  The MBRCC initiated a well-developed junior faculty mentoring program concomitant with the CoBRE award, with junior faculty members (C. Stehlik, Y. Agazie and L.Guo) securing subsequent new R01 grants; and several new and renewal R01 awards by senior MBRCC faculty as well (R01s awarded: S. Frisch, L. Gibson, B-H Jiang, and D. Flynn).  Other CoBRE supported investigators have also secured peer-reviewed funding through the American Cancer Society (ACS), American Heart Association (AHA), and Department of Defense (DOD) demonstrating the broad impact of Phase I support.  The CoBRE was renewed for Phase II (2006-2011) and the NIH/NCRR directed that the emphasis change to building multi-investigator teams with the long-term goal of assembling a competitive P01or comparable application.  Thus, as current junior faculty members graduate, the grant has taken on a blend of junior and senior faculty members, with a research emphasis on cell adhesion and regulation of cytoskeleton in cancer. During Phase II additional investigators have graduated to independent funding (J. Luo and L. Guo) and an administrative supplement from the NCRR was awarded. Additionally, a protein purification core has been established as well as broadened support of the imaging facility.  It is projected by the NIH/NCRR that there will be a Phase III for CoBRE funding (RFA-RR-09-005) for which support will be sought from 2011-2016 to provide continued core facility and additional infrastructure support allowing sustained impact of the CoBRE Funding from all three phases of support. 

Administrative core

PI: Laura Gibson, PhD –Professor, Pediatrics and MBRCC Program Leader, Tumor Microenvironment
Scot Remick, MD – Professor, Medicine and Director, Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center
Mike Ruppert, MD, PhD –Professor of Biochemistry, Jo and Ben Statler Eminent Scholar & Chair in Breast Cancer Research, Co-Leader, Program in Breast Cancer Research
Michael Schaller, PhD – Professor, Chairperson for Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

Cobre External Advisors

Donald “Skip” Trump, MD, President and CEO Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY
Candace Johnson, Senior Vice President for Translational Research Professor of Molecular Pharmacology, Buffalo, NY.
Anton Wellstein,MD/PhD, Division Chief of Biochemistry and Pharmacology, Professor, Department of Oncology, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Cobre Participants

Cobre Established Core Facilities