NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The cancer research fund-raising organization Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) said today that its latest funding round of $9.7 million includes several grants to support genetics, genomics, and molecular oncology studies.
The grants give up to $750,000 over three years to young researchers who are engaging in "high-risk/high-reward" studies, and the winners were selected by a scientific advisory committee assembled by the American Association for Cancer Research.
"We asked our best and brightest young researchers to step outside their comfort zones and strive to make big differences with bold initiatives," Richard Kolodner, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, a researcher at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and chairman of the review committee for the grants, said in a statement. "If these projects come to fruition, some of the ideas could be game-changers in cancer research."
The goal of these grants is to fund work that may "challenge existing paradigms," according to SU2C, and because of the nature of the research the applicants were not required to have already conducted a portion of the research or to have established a base of evidence.
Among the 13 SU2C Cancer Innovative Grant winners and grants include:
• William Pao of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center/Vanderbilt University: Identifying Solid Tumor Kinase Fusions via Exon Capture and 454 Sequencing;
• Charles M. Roberts of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Therapeutically Targeting the Epigenome in Aggressive Pediatric Cancers;
• José Silva of Columbia University Medical Center: Genetic Approaches for Next Generation of Breast Cancer Tailored Therapies;
• Muneesh Tewari of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center: Noninvasive Molecular Profiling of Cancer via Tumor-derived Microparticles;
• and David Weinstock of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Functional Oncogene Identification;