Cancer Research New Funding Opportunities

RUNX1 Early Career Investigator Program

Award: The RUNX1 Early Career Investigator grant is designed to fund research leading to the development of therapies to prevent the transition from pre-leukemia to leukemia for patients with RUNX1-FPD. Data sharing is a priority for this research program and an expected outcome of a completed project. Proposals that seek to translate from bench to bedside will receive priority.

Amount: $180,000 in direct costs over three years. Indirect costs not allowed. 

Eligibility:

• Applicant institutions may be based in the U.S. or outside of the U.S. Applicants need not be United States citizens. Funds must be granted to non-profit institutions or organizations.
• Applicants must have an MD, PhD, or MD/PhD (DO, MBBS, or equivalent) and be within five years of their first faculty appointment as an Assistant Professor or equivalent tenure-track position. Associate and Full Professors are ineligible. If at the Instructor level, the applicant must submit a letter of support from their mentor at the sponsoring institution.
• A minimum of 75% of the applicant’s time during the award period must be allocated as protected time for all research activities. This percentage of time includes both activities on this grant and the applicant’s other research responsibilities.
• Applicants may have research grants from other funding sources during the award period, but there must be clear documentation of mechanisms to avoid scientific and budgetary overlap.
• Applicants must have research experience working in, and a deep understanding of, normal or malignant hematopoiesis and/or immunology.
• One resubmission of a previously unfunded application is allowed. Use the Resubmission section of the application to respond to the prior RRP/ALSF critique of the proposal. The response will be scored in the review process in addition to the criteria used for new applications. Resubmissions compete with new applicants for funding.

Full Proposal Due: 12/19/2024 by 8 p.m. ET
Notification: March 2025
Projected Start Date: April 2025

Please contact Mary Hall Nunciato, Director of Foundation Relations, at mary.hall@bcm.edu with any questions. 

AACR-Johnson & Johnson Interventional Oncology Stimulating Therapeutic Advances through Research Training (START) Grants
Deadline: January 14, 2025, 1:00 PM (ET)
Budget: A three-year grant of $225,000 
Award: Proposals submitted should aim to focus on mechanisms linking immunogenic cell death pathways to amplification of innate and adaptive immunity, immunobiology of non-small cell lung cancers, and mechanisms of acquired resistance to immunotherapies are highly encouraged.  In addition, the training provided through this grants program will be invaluable to young investigators by providing fellows with a comprehensive research experience that will make them highly desirable to potential employers in either academic research or the pharmaceutical industry.

Contact Lyndsie Whitehead, Assistant Director of Foundation Relations at lyndsie.whitehead@bcm.edu with any questions.

https://thehopefoundation.org/funding-opportunities/swog-hope-foundation-impact-award/
LOI Deadline: Jan. 15, 2025 at 5pm ET
Amount: Up to $250,000 over 1-2 years

This program aims to advance SWOG research by funding the early and conceptual stages of these projects. The work proposed should use resources from completed SWOG studies or be directly translatable to future clinical trials in SWOG and the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). Projects may involve scientific risk but potentially lead to a breakthrough in a particular area, or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methodologies, models, or applications that could have a major impact on cancer research.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Cancer Research Institute  
Lloyd J. Old STAR Program 
Deadline: January 15th 
Budget: $1.25 million over a five-year period
Award: The CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR Program provides support to tenure-track assistant professors and associate professors who had a major impact in immunotherapy.  These grants are not tied to a specific research project, but rather support outstanding researchers based on the quality and promise of their overall work.  This long-term funding provides a degree of flexibility and freedom to explore outside-the-box and disruptive avenues of research.  It is expected that their discoveries in basic or translational research will ultimately influence the development of new immune-based therapies that will be effective for more cancer patients.

Contact Mary Hall Nunciato, Senior Director of Foundation Relations at mary.hall@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Bright Edge Golden Ticket Award
Application Deadline: Jan. 17, 2025
Budget: $25,000 cash award for research support
Award: Each Golden Ticket provides one year of fully paid individual bench space and membership at a fully equipped laboratory designed to accelerate early-stage oncology companies with promising new therapies, preferably with platforms that can be applied to multiple targets, that could benefit patients with hematologic and solid tumor malignancies.

Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)
Catalyst Research Program
Deadline: Tuesday, January 28, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. midnight PT
Budget: $2,000,000 over 3 years plus 25% indirect costs
Award: The SU2C Catalyst Research Program with support from Johnson & Johnson endeavors to support a clinical trial involving combination teclistamab and daratumumab for the treatment of AL amyloidosis. Mechanisms to foster collaborations within and among the Team will be employed—an approach that promotes the sharing of information and a goal-oriented focus on measurable milestones of progress. SU2C believes that this unique Team will advance scientific research in the interests of improved long-term outcomes for patients. The Team will benefit from SU2C’s structure and oversight through which a multi-disciplinary team will come together with support to focus on a discrete set of aims. The bi-annual progress review practiced by SU2C ensures that milestones and deliverables are met and will keep the project focused on its goals. The Research Team is supported by a funds via a collaborative agreement from Johnson & Johnson.

Contact Mary Hall Nunciato, Senior Director of Foundation Relations at mary.hall@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Young Investigator Award in Primary Brain Tumors
Application Deadline: January 31, 2025
Amount: $50,000 over 1 year
Provides funding to promising investigators to encourage and promote quality research in all focus areas of primary brain tumor research, with the goal of advancing the understanding and treatment of brain tumors. Applications are accepted from U.S. and Canadian applicants. Must be in the last two years of their final oncology subspecialty training and within 10 years of obtaining their medical degree at the time of grant submission.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Jose Baselga Young Investigator Award in Drug Development
Application Deadline: January 31, 2025
Amount: $50,000 over 1 year
Provides funding to promising investigators to encourage and promote quality research in clinical oncology with a focus on drug development, from discovery to development of new therapeutic drugs for cancer treatment. Applications are accepted from U.S. and international applicants. Must be in the last two years of their final oncology subspecialty training and within 10 years of obtaining their medical degree at the time of grant submission. Must be planning an investigative career in clinical oncology with a focus on drug development research.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Bristol Myers Squibb Endowed Young Investigator Award for Veteran Cancer
Application Deadline: January 31, 2025
Amount: $50,000 over 1 year
Provides funding to promising investigators to encourage and promote quality research in clinical oncology. This award will support an investigator who is a US Veteran1 or a research project that has a focus on Veteran cancer issues. Must be in the last two years of their final oncology subspecialty training and within 10 years of obtaining their medical degree at the time of grant submission. 

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Edward P. Evans Foundation EvansMDS Young Investigator Awards 
Application Deadline: Jan. 31, 2025
Budget: $450,000 over 3 years
This transition award is targeted at senior trainees looking to move to an independent investigator position in Myelodysplastic Syndromes research. We are targeting support for promising candidates committed to the study of the biology, pathogenesis, and treatment of MDS as they make their transition to independent investigators. 

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alexandra.hood@bcm.edu with any questions. 

Edward P. Evans Foundation Discovery Research Grants 
LOI Deadline: Jan. 31, 2025
Budget: $750,000 over 3 years
These awards are for studies to address critical challenges in Myelodysplastic Syndromes. To fund research into the etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment of MDS that is collaborative, transformative, and of high impact. Priority will be given to projects that directly examine key features of MDS.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Jane Coffin Childs Fund (JCC Fund) for Medical Research Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship
Application Deadline: Jan. 31, 2025
Budget: Year 1 $70,000; Year 2 $72,000; and Year 3 $74,000; with additional funding provided for research costs, travel costs, and relocation costs.
To support three years of salary support as a postdoctoral fellow. Supports research into the causes and treatment of cancer, the Fund’s mission has broadened to support fundamental scientific research that advances understanding of the causes, treatments, and cures for basic cancer and human disease. 

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

The NIH-funded Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Southern University Collaborative Union for Cancer Research, Education and Disparities (BCM-TSU P20 CURED) is offering a new funding opportunity to foster collaboration between the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center (DLDCCC, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center) and Texas Southern University (TSU, a predominantly minority serving institution).

CURED will fund two (2) pilot projects conducted by at least one DLDCCC and one TSU collaborator. These two-year projects will receive a total of $200K (to be split evenly as $50K per institution per year). Funding for year two will be contingent on progress made in the first year and additional matching institutional funds from the DLDCCC.

Projects must be cancer related and the connection between the DLDCCC and TSU components must be clear.

The official application will be available on December 15, 2024, and the deadline for applications is February 17, 2025.

For questions related to this RFA including about appropriateness of projects or help identifying a collaborator at BCM (DLDCCC) or TSU, please email rouce@bcm.edu.

The Ben & Catherine Ivy Foundation Translational Adult Glioma Award
Application Deadline: March 1, 2025
Budget: $600,000 over 2 years
Provides grant support to investigators conducting high-impact, high-reward translational research for glioblastoma.  This award is intended to support projects designed to contribute to identifying therapies that will impact the survival of patients with brain cancer.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

The Ben & Catherine Ivy Foundation Emerging Leader Award in Glioblastoma Research
Application Deadline: March 1, 2025
Budget: $500,000 over 2 years
Provides support to early-to-mid-career investigators conducting high-impact, high-reward translational research for glioblastoma. This award is intended to support ambitious pilot projects designed to identify drug strategies appropriate for early-phase pharmacodynamic- and pharmacokinetic-driven clinical trials.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation Basic Science Research Grants
LOI Deadline: March 1, 2025
Budget: $450,000 over 3 years 
These grants fund basic science, translational and/or clinical pediatric cancer research initiatives. These grants fund work that is the basis for childhood cancer research, helping to move science in the direction of improved treatments and eventually finding a cure. They are designed to move hypothesis-driven research into the clinic providing support for important preclinical projects that are necessary to move a study from the pre-clinical arena into a clinical trial. Applicants must be a PhD (with a least two years as a junior faculty or assistant professor) and/or MD. 

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation Translational Research Grants
LOI Deadline: March 1, 2025
Budget: $200,000 over 2 years 
These grants fund new research protocols and therapies that hold promise for improved outcomes and accelerates cures from the laboratory bench to the bedside of children and teens with highrisk cancers. This grant is given to single or multi-institutional programs that involve open, cancer clinical trials or consortia, and implement new approaches to therapy. Applicants must be a PhD and/or MD. 

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation Emerging Investigator Fellowship Grants
LOI Deadline: March 1, 2025
Budget: $60,000 over 1 year 
These grants are designed to support Post-Doctoral Fellowships and Clinical Investigator training for emerging pediatric cancer researchers to pursue exciting research ideas. Applicants must have completed two years of their fellowship or not more than two years as a junior faculty instructor or assistant professor at the start of the award period. 

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Award Name: 2025 Brain Cancer Research Investigator Grant 
Application Deadline: March 3, 2025
Amount (including indirect costs): $50,000 over 1 year

Brief Description of Mechanism: This award is presented to a clinical doctor or research scientist whose primary focus is brain cancer research. Clinical projects are encouraged, as well as translational projects with significant clinical promise. Projects for adult and pediatric brain cancer research will be considered.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Career Development Award
Application Deadline: March 13, 2025
Amount: $200,000 over 3 years
Provides research funding to clinical investigators, who have received their initial faculty appointment, as they work to establish an independent clinical cancer research program. This is a mentored award and the research project is conducted under the guidance of a scientific mentor. The research must have a patient-oriented focus, including a clinical research study and/or translational research involving human subjects. Applications in all areas of cancer research are accepted from U.S. and international applicants. Must be in the first to fourth year of a full-time primary faculty appointment at the time of grant submission. Applicants may not concurrently hold other career development awards from private foundations during the CDA-supported project term.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.

Young Investigator Award for Diversity and Inclusion in Breast Cancer Research
Application Deadline: March 13, 2025
Amount: $50,000 over 1 year
Provides funding to promising investigators who identify as members of populations underrepresented in medicine1 (UIM). The purpose of this award is to fund physicians during the transition from a fellowship program to a faculty appointment as they seek to build a career in clinical breast cancer research. Applications are accepted from U.S. and international applicants.  
Must be in the last two years of their final oncology subspecialty training and within 10 years of obtaining their medical degree at the time of grant submission. Must be planning an investigative career in clinical oncology with a focus on breast cancer research.

Contact Alex Hood, Associate Director Foundation Relations, at alex.hood@bcm.edu with any questions.