The US "Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs" (CDMRP) provide grants on behalf of the US Department of Defense (DoD) to support medical research projects in 18 biomedical programs. Each research program is focused on ending or curing a particular disease, condition or injury, and having a major impact on the quality of life of its survivors. For this reason, its medical research programs support both basic and applied research in various areas of medicine, such as ovarian cancer research in its Ovarian Cancer Research Program.
Researchers apply for these grants in a highly competitive process. Such researchers from the University of Bern, the University of Geneva and the University Hospital of Geneva have received a joint grant for their project on ovarian cancer.
This research program is the only US federal research program dedicated to this deadly disease and among the most prestigious awards for ovarian cancer. Besides the two awards for Bern and Geneva, a third award was granted to a researcher from the Lausanne University Hospital.
Rewarding the high quality of the collaborative research on cancer in Bern and Geneva
"This is an extraordinary success as in the past 10 years only one other Ovarian Cancer Research Program award was granted to a European scientist", says Prof. Brigitte Galliot, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Geneva.
“The Bernese and Geneva groups have been working together excellently in the fight against ovarian cancer. I am very pleased that they have now been awarded this competitive grant," says Prof. Hugues Abriel, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Bern.
Of the seven different types of awards, the Bern-Geneva project is one of only 12 Investigator-Initiated Research Awards which were selected from 95 applications. Their research project will be supported with around USD 878,000 in total for four years.
