The Irish Cancer Society has allocated research funding worth £330,000 for the current year, almost a third of which will be spent on breast cancer research.
Research funding by the society was up by about 10 per cent on last year according to its chief executive, Mr Barry Dempsey, who said all projects would be relevant to the Irish patient and were not duplicated elsewhere.
"The Irish Cancer Society attaches particular importance to breast cancer research because of the increasing numbers of Irish women being diagnosed with the disease each year," Mr Dempsey stated.
The latest national cancer registry figures show that about 1,700 Irish women developed breast cancer in 1996, with 635 dying from the disease.
The Health Research Board has also announced an increase in research funding for 2000, up by a third from £5.1 million to £6.8 million. It is now inviting applications for research projects under several headings.
The closing date for general projects in health-related biological sciences, epidemiology, health services research and health research is February 18th.
The deadline for co-funded health services research, which requires matching health board, hospital or health agency funding, is March 2000.
Interdisciplinary projects, which link researchers in health, engineering, information technology or the humanities, have a closing deadline of March 24th.
A separate North-South co-operation grant programme is also available, offering a combined £80,000 per project over three years. This deadline is March 10th.
Full details are available on the HRB web site at: http:// www.hrb.ie and cross-Border information is also available from the UK R&D Office at http://www.rdo.csa.n-i.nhs.uk