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Innovation Grants

These grants are designed to provide critical and significant seed funding for experienced investigators with a novel and promising approach to finding causes and cures for childhood cancers. A Letter of Intent is required. The Innovation Award amount totals $250,000 over two years. The Award may not be renewed, however, one no cost extensions are allowable.

University of Michigan

Background

More children die from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) than from any other cancer. NOTCH1 was found to be the most frequent cancer-causing gene in T-ALL. However, in clinical trials anti-NOTCH drugs had too much toxicity and even promoted cancers. The reason for these side effects is that Notch is an important protein that keeps normal tissues healthy. How can we knock out Notch in cancer, but preserve Notch in normal cells? We believe that the answer may be two proteins called Zmiz1 and Ets1.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Mark Yat-Fung Chiang, MD/PhD

Project Title: 

Selective Epigenetic Regulation of Notch1 in T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Year Awarded: 

2016

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Baylor College of Medicine

Background

Cell metabolism is a key aspect of cell biology. Tumors frequently have significant alterations in the specific types of nutrients they require and the way in which they use these nutrients. Certain genes are often associated with driving these critical changes in tumor cell metabolism, which in turn define their aggressive nature. In particular, MYCN, a potent gene that is altered in several pediatric cancers, such as neuroblastoma, is capable of driving defined changes in tumor metabolism.

Project Goal

Principal Investigator Name: 

Eveline Barbiere, MD

Project Title: 

Targeting MYCN-amplified Neuroblastoma Through RORalpha Activation

Year Awarded: 

2016

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Case Western Reserve University

Background: Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common aggressive primary bone cancer in the pediatric and adolescent population. Half of all new cases of OS diagnosed in the U.S. occur in children and young adults, and about 20% of these patients have metastatic spread, while others developed lung metastasis after initiation of therapy. Lung metastasis in OS responds poorly to conventional chemotherapy, which accounts for most of the mortality.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Alex Huang, MD, PhD

Project Title: 

Cure Osteosarcoma Lung Metastasis by Disrupting Tumor VCAM-1 Signaling with Macrophages

Year Awarded: 

2015

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

University of California, Davis Medical Center

Background:

High-grade pediatric gliomas are catastrophic cancers. Greater than 90% of children with these tumors die within two years of diagnosis even with today's best treatments, which are based on adult therapies and have devastating side effects. There is an urgent need for new, more effective therapies that are specifically designed for children because pediatric gliomas are different from adult.

Project Goal:

Principal Investigator Name: 

Paul Knoepfler, PhD

Project Title: 

Histone H3.3 Targeted Therapy for Pediatric High-grade Gliomas

Year Awarded: 

2015

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Background:

Radiation and chemotherapy is the standard for most patients with cancer. The goal is to kill as many of the tumor cells as possible before resistance develops and the tumor stops responding. Our recent work has discovered that the release of the cellular content (cellular debris) of dead tumor cells into the tumor microenvironment provides the necessary factors that stimulate surviving tumor cells to grow.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Mark Kieran, MD, PhD & Dipak Panigrahy, MD

Project Title: 

Regulation of Tumor Debris Mediated Inflammation as a Therapeutic Modality in Medulloblastoma

Year Awarded: 

2015

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Enhanced Drug Repurposing Screen in DSRCT Enabled by New In Vitro and In Vivo Models Based on CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Engineering

Project Summary:

Principal Investigator Name: 

Marc Ladanyi, MD & Maria Jasin, PhD

Project Title: 

Enhanced Drug Repurposing Screen in DSRCT Enabled by New In Vitro and In Vivo Models Based on CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Engineering

Year Awarded: 

2015

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

University of California San Francisco

Background:

Pediatric T cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive blood cancer and children are currently treated with chemotherapy but its non-specific and toxic aspect is problematic. More specific therapies are desired but T-ALL's differ from patient to patient and even within one patient there are cell subsets within the leukemia (called heterogeneity). It is therefore challenging to implement or analyze the effects of precision medicine that inhibit abnormally functioning proteins in T-ALL.

Project Goal:

Principal Investigator Name: 

Jeroen Roose, PhD

Project Title: 

High-dimensional Biochemical CyTOF Analysis of Pediatric T cell Leukemias

Year Awarded: 

2015

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Johns Hopkins University

Background:

Principal Investigator Name: 

Linda Resar, MD & Richard Schlegel, MD, PhD

Project Title: 

Developing a Novel Tumor Model to Screen for New Therapies for Spinal Ependymoma

Year Awarded: 

2015

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

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