Researcher Summits
Collaborating for Cures
Together, ALSF funded researchers are making breakthroughs.
An integral part of achieving our mission of finding less toxic treatments and cures with cancer is to foster collaboration and community across research specialties, institutions and labs. Getting the best and brightest researchers in a room together can move ideas forward quickly, spark inspiration and strengthen community. Creating networking opportunities for early career scientists, both between each other and with experts in the field, can encourage ideas, create life-long connections and enhance the connection a researcher has to the mission of curing childhood cancer. ALSF, with the support of its corporate partners hosts a series of researcher summits each year.
Centers of Excellence Summit
Through the Centers of Excellence program, ALSF supports the training of physician scholars in drug development as well as the infrastructure needed to run clinical trials. The centers work together to drive discovery and provide children access to targeted experimental treatment options when frontline therapy has failed.
At this year’s meeting, University of California San Francisco, Texas Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia met to discuss ways to collaborate on clinical trials, cross mentoring scholars, strategies to site challenges and addressing Equity and Access to Clinical Trials.
Crazy 8 Research Summit
As researchers continue to move closer to cures for all children, there are still types of childhood cancer that remain incurable. To accelerate childhood cancer research, ALSF has developed the Crazy 8 Initiative, a $50 million commitment to solve the most intractable problems in childhood cancers. The $50 million will fund at least 10 game-changing collaborative projects that connect researchers across the globe.
The Crazy 8 Summit is held each year in Philadelphia to bring together these collaborative teams of scientists to share their knowledge, build on what they’ve learned and work together toward solving these problems for children with cancer.
JMML Research Summit
The first JMML International Symposium, hosted by the JMML Foundation in 2005, was a long-term planning meeting among physician scientists to decide how future meetings would best function in terms of topics covered, participants, locations, etc.
Since then, this Annual Summit has brought together researchers from across the globe to share, collaborate and plan for the future. ALSF became involved in 2018 and we were honored to become a part of this dedicated group.
The JMML Summit will be held December 6, 2024 in San Diego, CA (before the ASH Conference). If you are a researcher interested in attending or getting updates on ALSF efforts in JMML, please sign up below.
Young Investigator Research Summit
Each year, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) partners with Northwestern Mutual to bring together Young Investigators, ‘A’ Awardees and Center of Excellence Scholars to meet with other grantees funded by ALSF. Attendees will learn about the latest childhood cancer research, connect with leaders in the field, explore ideas for collaboration and learn from expert speakers through poster sessions and panel discussions.
This exciting event is an example of one of the many ways ALSF helps spur advances toward cures. Through this program, researchers are able to share and expand knowledge across institutions and focus on career advancement that will ultimately increase the pace of finding better treatments and cures.
The Young Investigator Summit has been held in numerous cities across the country, including Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. We look forward to seeing you in-person this October!
