The Florida Biomedical Research Programs (Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program and James & Esther King Biomedical Research Program) have received the National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation as a funding organization with an approved peer review and funding systems. This designation is important for receiving Cancer Center Support Grants and the NCI Cancer Center designation. It also provides external validation of our process for awarding grants.

Validation by the NCI is highly significant for Florida's current researchers and provides an additional incentive for beginning or continuing cancer research in the state of Florida. As Dr. Alan Fields, Chair, Department of Cancer Biology, and Director of Cancer Basic Science at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains, "The Florida Biomedical Research Program grants provide our investigators with critical funds to further their important cancer research in this difficult federal funding environment. The decision by the National Cancer Institute to recognize these grants as being equivalent to NCI funding mechanisms is an important acknowledgement by the NCI of the investment that the State is making to promote cancer research in Florida. The level of NCI equivalent funding is an important metric in evaluating Comprehensive Cancer performance, and so this new designation of Florida Biomedical Research Program grants will assist institutions within the state in obtaining and renewing NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center Support Grants. Finally, availability of these federally recognized funding mechanisms will help us to attract outstanding cancer researchers to the State and to retain them."

Click on the following link to view the approval letter: NCI Approval Letter.