Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation Announces 2017 Innovation Grant Recipients 

The Innovation Grant provides significant seed funding for leading pediatric oncologists searching for cures.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), a nonprofit dedicated to finding cures for all children with cancer, has awarded 19 Innovation Grants to leading pediatric oncologists across the country. Over the course of two years, researchers receive $250,000 of critical funding to pursue unique projects.

“ALSF is kick-starting a brand new project in my lab, discovering a novel approach to stopping pediatric tumor cell proliferation,” said Seth Rubin, PhD of University of California, Santa Cruz. “This seed funding is essential for innovation at a time in my career when I aim to translate my lab's basic research findings into new strategies that can ultimately be used in the clinic to help children with cancer.”

Innovation Grant recipients will conduct their research at 19 top institutions across the U.S. and Canada. The projects will study various types of childhood cancers. A list of the scientists receiving grants, their institutions and the titles of their projects is included on the following page.

“The Innovation Grant encourages experienced researchers in the field to push for breakthroughs in childhood cancers, ultimately leading to new clinical interventions,” said Jay Scott, Co-Executive Director of ALSF. “Each year, the recipients continue to show great promise moving us toward desperately needed cures, with important findings along the way.”

The Innovation Grant, one of the first grants awarded by ALSF since its inception, was created to provide critical and significant seed funding for experienced researchers with novel and promising approaches to finding the causes and cures for childhood cancers. Research funded by ALSF has been featured in The New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Molecular Therapy, AACR Journal, Oncogene, Nature and more. In addition to Innovation Grants, ALSF funds several other grant categories to researchers on the front lines of the childhood cancer fight. For more information, visit: www.ALSFgrants.org.

2017 Innovation Grant Recipients

Iannis Aifantis, PhD, New York University School of Medicine  

Long Non-Coding RNAs as Novel Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets in Pediatric Leukemia

Scott Armstrong, MD/PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Targeting BRD9 in Sarcoma

Ranjit S. Bindra, MD/PhD & W. Mark Saltzman, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine

Development of Nanoparticle-Encapsulated Chemo/Radio-Sensitizers for Intrathecal Delivery

Susann Brady-Kalnay, PhD & Co-PI: Efstathios Karathanasis, PhD, CASE Western Reserve University

Targeting Pediatric Brain Tumors Using PTPmu Nanochains with Radiofrequency-Releasable Therapeutics

Susan Cohn, MD & Chuan He MD/PhD, University of Chicago

Genome-Wide 5hmC Profiling of Neuroblastoma Tumors and Patient Cell-Free DNA

Seth Corey, MD, Virginia Commonwealth University (Co-PI: Marek Kimmel, PhD, Rice University)

Predictive Modeling of MDS Disease Progression From Inherited Bone Marrow Failure Syndrome Using Novel Branching Process and Next Generation Sequencing to Improve Patient-Specific Survival

Sharon Diskin, PhD, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

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

Adolfo A. Ferrando, MD/PhD, Institute for Cancer Genetics

Targeting Metabolic Vulnerabilities in ETP-ALL

Patrick Grohar, MD/PhD, Van Andel Research Institute

Development of Mithramycin Analogs for Ewing’s Sarcoma

Jordan Jacobelli, PhD, National Jewish Health  

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

Paul Knoepfler, PhD, University of California Davis Medical Center

Targeting Childhood Brain Cancer in a Dish to Catalyze New Therapies

Vivian Oehler, MD & Soheil Meshinchi, MD/PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

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

Linda Resar, MD, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine & Andrei Thomas-Tikhonenko, PhD, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Novel Approaches for Epigenetic Therapy for Relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Miguel Rivera, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital

Mechanisms of OTX2 Mediated Chromatin Regulation in Medulloblastoma

Seth Rubin, PhD, University of California Santa Cruz

Targeted Degradation of Proliferative Transcription Factors in Pediatric Cancers

Jie Song, PhD, University of Massachusetts Medical School

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

Marc Symons, PhD, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research    

De-escalation of Radiotherapy for Medulloblastoma by a Novel DNA Damage Checkpoint Inhibitor

Andrei Thomas-Tikhonenko, PhD, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Alternative Splicing in the Pathogenesis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia           

Tamra Werbowetski-Ogilvie, PhD, University of Manitoba        

Characterization of Novel OTX2-semaphorin Gene Signaling Pathways Regulating the ‘Grow and Go’ Arms of Highly Aggressive Medulloblastomas