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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.

3-D Printed Self-fitting Shape Memory Bone Grafts for Smart Pediatric Skeletal Reconstruction

Background

Principal Investigator Name: 

Jie Song, PhD

Project Title: 

3-D Printed Self-fitting Shape Memory Bone Grafts for Smart Pediatric Skeletal Reconstruction

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Targeted Degradation of Proliferative Transcription Factors in Pediatric Cancers

Background

Principal Investigator Name: 

Seth Rubin, PhD

Project Title: 

Targeted Degradation of Proliferative Transcription Factors in Pediatric Cancers

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Novel Approaches for Epigenetic Therapy for Relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Background
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common form of childhood leukemia and the leading cause of death in children with cancer. While therapy is often curative, ~15% of children will relapse with recurrent disease and abysmal outcomes. Why some children develop resistant disease remains unclear. 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Linda Resar, MD & Andrei Thomas-Tikhonenko, PhD

Project Title: 

Novel Approaches for Epigenetic Therapy for Relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Establishing the Function of Novel MicroRNAs Associated with Resistance and Relapse in Pediatric AML

Background

Principal Investigator Name: 

Vivian Oehler, MD & Soheil Meshinchi, MD/PhD

Project Title: 

Establishing the Function of Novel MicroRNAs Associated with Resistance and Relapse in Pediatric AML

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Targeting Childhood Brain Cancer in a Dish to Catalyze New Therapies

Background 
Greater than 90% of children diagnosed with high-grade pediatric gliomas die within two years of diagnosis, even with today's best treatments. A desperate need exists for more effective therapies that are specifically designed for pediatric gliomas, which are different from adult gliomas. A factor called H3.3 was recently discovered to be frequently mutated in these tumors, making H3.3 an attractive new therapeutic target. 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Paul Knoepfler, PhD

Project Title: 

Targeting Childhood Brain Cancer in a Dish to Catalyze New Therapies

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Role of Protocadherin-9 in Enabling Leukemia Cell Colonization of the CNS

Background
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer. Current therapies lead to high remission rates, but many patients relapse, often with the involvement of the brain and spinal cord – the Central Nervous System (CNS). Specific CNS-directed treatments limit these CNS relapses but do not eliminate them. Additionally, these CNS-directed treatments have severe short- and long-term side effects, particularly in children. 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Jordan Jacobelli, PhD

Project Title: 

Role of Protocadherin-9 in Enabling Leukemia Cell Colonization of the CNS

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Development of Mithramycin Analogs for Ewing sarcoma

Background
A promising drug target for Ewing’s sarcoma is a protein called EWS-FLI1. This is a type of protein called a transcription factor which is thought by many to be an “undruggable target.” 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Patrick Grohar, MD/PhD

Project Title: 

Development of Mithramycin Analogs for Ewing sarcoma

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Targeting Metabolic Vulnerabilities in ETP-ALL

Background
Early T cell precursor leukemia (ETP ALL) is an aggressive hematologic malignancy that requires treatment with intensified chemotherapy. Thus, further advances in the treatment of this disease require the development of effective and highly specific molecularly targeted anti-leukemic drugs. There is growing awareness that targeting the metabolic differences between tumor and normal cells holds promise as a novel anticancer strategy. 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Adolfo A. Ferrando, MD/PhD

Project Title: 

Targeting Metabolic Vulnerabilities in ETP-ALL

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Defining the Cell Surface Landscape of Diagnostic and Relapsed Neuroblastoma: Immunotherapeutic Target Identification

Background
Neuroblastoma (NB) is a childhood cancer of the developing sympathetic nervous system that is often fatal. Despite intense therapy, the survival rate for high-risk NB remains less than 50% and relapsed NB is almost universally incurable. Utilizing one's immune system to fight cancer has shown remarkable results in both childhood and adult malignancies. Ideal immunotherapeutic targets are proteins expressed on the surface of cancerous cells, but absent on normal cells. 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Sharon Diskin, PhD

Project Title: 

Defining the Cell Surface Landscape of Diagnostic and Relapsed Neuroblastoma: Immunotherapeutic Target Identification

Year Awarded: 

2017

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

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