Episode 17 | FY25 NCI SBIR Contract Solicitation Topics Pt. 2

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Episode Guests

Monique Pond, Ph.D.

Monique Pond, Ph.D., is a Team Leader and Program Director at the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She manages a portfolio of grants and contracts to small businesses developing novel cancer therapeutics, digital health technologies, and therapeutic devices.

Dr. Pond leads the Connecting Awardees with Regulatory Experts (CARE) program and other collaborative initiatives with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to assist small businesses in navigating the regulatory pathway for their technology. She initially joined the NCI SBIR Development Center in 2018 as a Science & Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Melissa Li, Ph.D.

Melissa Li, Ph.D., is a Program Director at the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She is focused on developing programs and initiatives that promote inclusion and equitable access to small business funding for entrepreneurs developing innovative cancer technologies. Currently, she leads the Mentor And Trainee Connections HUb Program (MATCHUP), a program that introduces top-tier talent to SBIR/STTR companies eligible for administrative supplements and co-leads the NCI’s efforts on the NCI SBIR/STTR Training and Entrepreneurship Program (STEP), which provides Phase I SBIR/STTR application preparation support and entrepreneurial training to small businesses.

Programs Mentioned in Episode

Explore the programs mentioned in this episode:

• NCI SBIR Contract Solicitation
• Newsletter Mailing list
• NCI SBIR Event page
   

Episode Transcript

MONIQUE POND: Hello and welcome to Innovation Lab, your go to resource for all things biotech startups, brought to you today by the National Cancer Institute’s Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR Development Center. Our podcast hosts interviews with successful entrepreneurs and provides resources for small businesses looking to take their cutting edge cancer solutions from lab to market. I'm Monique Pond, a Program Director and Team Lead here at NCI SBIR and today's host. 

In our episode today, I'll continue my conversation with NCI SBIR Program Director Dr. Melissa Li on the topics featured in FY 2025 NCI SBIR Contract Solicitation. In the previous episode on this funding opportunity, we discussed some of the solicitation details and just the process by which the topics were developed. So if you missed that, be sure to check back, if you're interested in learning more on that. Now without any further ado, let's jump into the remaining contract topics. Welcome back, Melissa. 

MELISSA LI: I’m ready to be here again.

MONIQUE POND: So, in the previous episode, we discussed topics in the therapeutics category, we have seven this year. Can you start by describing the next category of topics, the clinical diagnostics and molecular analysis topic? 

MELISSA LI: Absolutely. So, I’ll start off with the topic point of care detection of antibodies against HPV 16 and 18, E6 and E7 oncoproteins. The goal of this topic is to develop a rapid point of care test to screen high risk individuals for HPV related oral pharyngeal cancers, specifically looking for tests that can detect antibodies against the HPV 16 and 18 E6 and E7 proteins. 

MONIQUE POND: Great. It sounds like this topic might be suitable for products that could be used both here in the US for high risk populations, but as well as include people living in other countries that might have limited medical infrastructure. Another category that innovators can submit proposals under is our information technology and digital health topics. What opportunities do we have this year in this area? 

MELISSA LI: So, one of them is the development of digital biomarkers and endpoints for clinical cancer care. So, as digital health technologies are used more and more, there's been a huge collection of physiological and behavior data. And the goal of this topic is to generate software and tools that uses digital health technology data to create cancer specific digital biomarkers and endpoints that have some sort of clinical utility. So these have been used in other areas of health, specifically for NCI, these could be used for things like cancer detection or treatment tolerance or toxicities. 

MONIQUE POND: So, for example, a biomarker that could identify an adverse event occurring with a patient early on, so maybe the clinical care team could intervene earlier. 

MELISSA LI: Right. So, I think a good example is, you know, there are digital health technologies that collect heart data and so you could monitor patients that are using well known care chemotherapeutics that are well known for having cardio-toxicity. Another topic we have is the digital twin software for optimization of cancer radiation therapy. So this is a new up and coming area. Digital twins are virtual multi-dimensional models of systems designed to allow virtual testing and predictions. These are being used in other fields and the goal of this topic is to support the development of digital twin software in the biomedical field, specifically for cancer patients. So, the hope is that they could develop a tool or a product that helps clinical decision making before, during, or after radiation therapy. 

MONIQUE POND: OK. And this brings us to our next contract topic and this one's related to medical devices. 

MELISSA LI: Yeah, so this topic is wearable technologies to facilitate remote monitoring of cancer patients following treatment. So, the goal of this is to support the development and combination of wearable sensors with analytical software approaches, specifically to remotely monitor patients after treatment. So, they're looking for both hardware and software products. 

MONIQUE POND: All right. Well, this brings us to our last contract topic for FY 2025, this one is in the research tools category. 

MELISSA LI: Yeah. So this is our topic, Advanced Biomaterials to Improve Cancer Modeling for Research. This topic is supporting the development of biomaterial based tools for better cancer models that could potentially solve key issues like reproducibility, mechanical properties, and biocompatibility. And ultimately, this would help rigorous and reproducible cancer research and potentially drug screening. 

MONIQUE POND: Well, that wraps up this year's topics, but before we close things out, Melissa, do you have any big picture advice or one last tip for listeners about this funding opportunity and what they should do for next steps?

MELISSA LI: Yeah, it's super basic, but read the solicitation carefully. All of the instructions, page limits, who you should contact if you have questions are all listed in that solicitation, as well as the description of the topics and the activities and deliverables that you need to propose. Along those lines, I just want to remind everyone that this is a contract, not a grant, so you're not speaking to program directors about the topic, you would need to reach out to the Office of Acquisitions, whose e-mail will be published in the Contract Solicitation, and you can reach out to them. 

MONIQUE POND: OK, great. Yeah, that's a good last tip for point of contact for questions and next steps. Well, thanks again for joining us, Melissa. 

MELISSA LI: Thank you for having me. And just a reminder to all the listeners, attend our webinars, check out our LinkedIn, and our mailing list for the most up-to-date updates.

MONIQUE POND: And as always for our listeners, don't forget to check out our website, sbir.cancer.gov for the latest funding opportunities and commercialization resources that support your journey from lab to market. This was Monique Pond from NCI SBIR. Please join us again for the next installment of NCI SBIR Innovation Lab and subscribe today, wherever you listen. If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, you can e-mail us at nciinfo@nih.gov or call us at 800-422-6237, and please be sure to mention Innovation Lab in your query. 

We are a production of the US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks, everyone for listening.