Imaging, Biomarkers and Digital Pathomics for the Early Detection of Premetastatic Aggressive Cancer (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will support the development and characterization of state-of-the-art projects that include imaging, biomarkers, digital pathomic and other omic data integration strategies for improving current approaches for the earliest detection of premetastatic aggressive cancer as well as identifying precancerous lesions that will subsequently demonstrate an aggressive phenotype. This FOA specifically attempts to address and improve diagnostic uncertainty in clinical decisions in a technology agnostic manner by improving sensitivity and specificity of applied tests. N-dimensional co-registered, cross-correlated imaging data integrated with multiplexed biomarker results and digital pathomics using analytic strategies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality visualization for improving cancer research discovery are encouraged. The projects supported by this FOA will collectively participate in the existing Consortium for Imaging and Biomarkers (CIB) Research Program. The goals of the CIB are to: (1) improve diagnostic performance by developing methodology for the early identification of lethal cancer versus non-lethal disease, (2) to minimize/better manage overdiagnosis and (3) to reduce false positives and false negatives.