Army Medical Research and Development Command

Funds military health and operational medicine research through the United States Army medical research system.

The Army Medical Research and Development Command (MRDC), headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland, sits inside the Defense Health Agency's research and development structure and focuses on biomedical research that protects warfighter health, improves military medicine, and supports readiness. Its biggest funding arm is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, which gives the command a direct role in the federal medical research market.

CDMRP distributed $1.27 billion in FY26 across 34 peer-reviewed disease and trauma programs, making it one of the largest annual federal medical research funding pools outside NIH. It awards grants through annual Program Announcements and multiple mechanisms, including Idea Award, Investigator-Initiated Research, Clinical Trial Award, Career Development, and Technology or Therapeutic Development routes. The portfolio includes breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, peer-reviewed medical research, peer-reviewed cancer research, and combat-readiness topics, and the eligibility rules extend to foreign entities, nonprofit research organizations, and for-profit companies.

For applicants, the key is fit to a program-specific call rather than a standing open topic list. Applications move through eBRAP and Grants.gov, and the annual cycle lets teams align a scientific plan to the mechanism that matches their stage, whether that is an early idea, translational work, or a clinical trial.