You are here

Home » Accelerator Programs » Innovation Grants

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.

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University School of Medicine

Background

When we give a cancer a name we imply that it is a homogeneous entity. It is well known, however, that by the time cancer reaches a size to become clinically detectable it is a complex and large heterogeneous mixture of cancer cells. It is likely that this underlying heterogeneity plays an important role in both the development of the cancer and its response to treatment. 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Matthew Porteus, MD, PhD

Project Title: 

Studying the clonal dynamics and evolution of leukemia using molecular barcodes

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

University of California San Francisco

About 25% of childhood B cell lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemias (ALL) carry oncogenic tyrosine kinases (e.g. JAK2/CRLF2, BCR-ABL and FLT3). Tyrosine kinase driven ALL (TKD-ALL) collectively define the group of patients with the highest risk and a high frequency of drug-resistance and relapse in children.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Markus Muschen, MD, PhD

Project Title: 

Targeting inhibitory phosphatase signaling in high-risk childhood ALL

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

New York University School of Medicine

Decscription will be provided at the end of the project, at the request of the investigator.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Brian Dynlacht, PhD

Project Title: 

The role of primary cilia in rhabdomyosarcoma

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

University of California San Francisco

Neuroblastoma is the third most common pediatric cancer. Amplification of MYCN is a strong independent predictor of poor patient outcome. MYCN represents an attractive target for therapy, as it is serves as a genetic marker for subset of high-risk neuroblastoma and it is expressed at relatively low levels in normal tissues.

Principal Investigator Name: 

William Weiss, MD/PhD

Project Title: 

Blockade of MYCN in neuroblastoma

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

University of Chicago

We recently demonstrated that African Americans with neuroblastoma have a statistically worse outcome than Caucasian patients. Although multiple factors contribute to health disparities, our studies indicate that genetic factors play a critical role in the overall poor outcome we observed in African American children. Using a unique laboratory, cell-based model, Drs.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Susan Cohn, MD

Project Title: 

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Survival of Children with Neuroblastoma

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Files: 

PDF icon Susan Cohn - 2011.pdf

Children's Hospital Boston

Germ cell tumors arise from the tissues that make up the reproductive tract, and although rare, cause significant morbidity and mortality in the pediatric age group. This proposal will investigate the role of a gene called Lin28 in germ cell tumors. Recently, we have discovered that Lin28 blocks the production of an important class of regulators in the cell called Let-7 microRNAs, which are "tumor-suppressors" that protect against cancers of the breast, lung, and colon.

Principal Investigator Name: 

George Daley, MD/PhD

Project Title: 

Investigating the Role of Lin-28 in Germ Cell Tumorigenesis

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Neuroblastoma (NB) is an embryonic tumor of the nervous system accounting for approximately 15% of all childhood cancer deaths.  High-risk neuroblastomas often worsen despite intensive chemotherapy and relapse is common and almost uniformly fatal.  A major problem in being able to treat this childhood disease stems from the heterogeneity of the genetic abnormalities that underlie it, which result in a multitude of disease subtypes that make its treatment enormously difficult.  The latest technological breakthroughs that led to the sequencing of the human genome, now allow us to identify man

Principal Investigator Name: 

Alfred Tom Look, MD

Project Title: 

In vivo Analysis of Neuroblastoma Pathogenesis using Transgenic Zebrafish

Year Awarded: 

2011

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Yale School of Medicine

A major challenge in treating malignant brain tumors is why killing the vast majority of cancer cells does not lead to a cure. The apparent similarity between the ability of cancer cells to proliferate uncontrollably and that of the stem cells to continuously replenish themselves (self-renew) has led to the notion that cancers are diseases of stem cells and that a few cancer stem cells are sufficient to form new tumors to cause relapse and prevent cure.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Weimin Zhong

Project Title: 

Treating Brain Tumor by Changing Cell Division Pattern

Year Awarded: 

2010

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Institution: 

Yale School of Medicine

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a childhood disease characterized by multiple devastating symptoms, which include bone marrow failure leading to aplastic anemia, congenital abnormalities, and a high incidence of cancer. Although recent medical advances have increased the life expectancy for FA patients, they often succumb to tumor malignancies before reaching adulthood. Therefore, research into the cellular and molecular basis of FA-associated cancer is urgently needed.

Principal Investigator Name: 

Yong Xiong

Project Title: 

Elucidating the Initiation Mechanism of the Fanconi Anemia Pathway of DNA Damage Repair

Year Awarded: 

2010

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Institution: 

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT) is a widely-used treatment for leukemias and lymphomas. For many children with these malignancies, allo-BMT represents the only treatment with the potential for cure. Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), however, afflicts between 30-80% of patients following transplant and remains a major cause of death. The primary cause of GVHD is known to be linked to donor T cells, which can recognize host cells as foreign and attack indiscriminately, often targeting both cancer cells and normal tissues.
 

Principal Investigator Name: 

Marcel van den Brink

Project Title: 

Targeting Neovascularization in Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Year Awarded: 

2010

Cancer Research Category: 

Category of Grant: 

Medical, Nurse Researcher, Quality of LIfe: 

Institution: 

Pages

Featured Hero

Alex Schnarre

Alex's cold seemed to be more than just a cold. He wasn't acting like himself, and his face and belly were swollen. Alex was diagnosed with AML and his kidneys were in acute failure, so he began treatment immediately. Today, he is thriving!
Read more »