The FY26 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding for the LCRP to support innovative, high-impact research with clinical relevance that will eradicate deaths and suffering from lung cancer to better the health and welfare of Service Members, Veterans and the general public. As part of the DHA R&D-MRDC, the CDMRP is the program office managing these anticipated FY26 funding opportunities.
The LCRP provides the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY26 funding opportunities. Investigators should not construe this pre-announcement as an obligation or promise by the government. The CDMRP will post FY26 LCRP funding opportunity announcements on the Grants.gov website. Once released, the funding opportunity announcements will include pre-application and application deadlines.
Applications submitted to the FY26 LCRP must address one or more of the following areas of emphasis:
- Biology and Etiology
- Understand the molecular mechanisms of initiation and progression of pre-malignancy to lung cancer
- Understand contributors to lung cancer development other than tobacco, including hereditary and sex-specific differences
- Understand the biology of metastatic/oligometastatic disease progression
- Prevention and Risk Reduction
- Identify innovative strategies for prevention and/or interception of lung cancer development
- Identify innovative strategies for the prevention of recurrence or metastases from lung cancer
- Detection, Diagnosis and Surveillance
- Improve and expand approaches to screening and early detection of lung cancer
- Identify strategies for prompt detection and/or characterization of progressive disease
- Treatment and Prognosis
- Identify innovative strategies for the treatment of lung cancer, including overcoming resistance
- Develop or optimize biomarkers to assist with therapeutic decision making
- Enhance the understanding, detection, and treatment of brain and leptomeningeal metastases in lung cancer
- Health Outcomes and Survivorship
- Identify and understand the long-term and cumulative effects of lung cancer and its treatment(s) on quality of life for patients and families
- Identify and understand impact of comorbidities on survivorship care in all stages of lung cancer
- Reduce differences among high-risk groups and populations
Relevance to Military Health: The LCRP seeks to support research that is relevant to the healthcare needs of Service Members, Veterans and their Families. The LCRP strongly encourages investigators to consider the following characteristics as examples of how a project may demonstrate relevance to military health:
- Use of military or Veteran populations, biospecimens, data/databases, or programs in the proposed research
- Collaboration with DOD or Department of Veterans Affairs investigators
- Explanation of how the project addresses an aspect of lung cancer with a direct or unique relevance to the military, Veterans, other military health system beneficiaries, or Family readiness of Service Members, including environmental exposures other than tobacco