Grants Search Results

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: LEAHRN (Late Effects After High Risk Neuroblastoma) Consortium. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: LEAHRN (Late Effects After High Risk Neuroblastoma) Consortium. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

Modern therapies such as stem cell transplant and immune therapy have made high-risk neuroblastoma a survivable disease for some children, but little is known about the chronic health issues experienced by survivors. In order to ensure that future treatments address both the chance and the quality of cure, this consortium aims to examine the impact of neuroblastoma therapy on survivors' growth, pubertal development and long-term health.

This grant is named for and funded by the "Just Do It...…and be done with it" Hero Fund created in honor of Sara Martorano who doesn't let anything dim her sparkle and has a compassionate heart and smile. It also celebrates the courage of all cancer kids through treatment and the support of their family and friends.

Cancer cells compete with the body for food. Some cancer cells use fat to grow, spread, and hide in the brain. When cancer cells hide in the brain, it is hard for chemotherapy reach them due to the blood brain barrier, which allows cancers to come back when they come out of hiding. Dr. Wang and colleagues are investigating how childhood leukemia uses fat to survive in the brain and how drugs that starve leukemia of fat can kill leukemia cells hiding in the brain.

The second year of this grant is generously supported by Rhys’ Pieces of the Cure, a Hero Fund created to honor Rhys Goldman and his journey with cancer. He was diagnosed with pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia just 2 weeks before his 6th birthday and endured treatment for three years. Rhys missed a lot of school and life during those years but since marking the end of treatment in July 2018, he has been enjoying swimming, singing in a boys’ choir, chess tournaments, playing with his dogs and going to school. Rhys’ Pieces for the Cure was created to ensure more research is funded for the treatment of pediatric cancer that is specifically focused on less toxic cures for kids.

Based on the progress to date, Dr. Lindquist was awarded a new grant in 2025 to fund an additional year of this Fellow grant.

Children with the brain tumor ependymoma have high relapse rates and poor long-term survival. Treatment options for ependymoma are limited and there is no known effective chemotherapy. Dr. Lindquist is working to make a new model of this tumor, to study how the tumor forms and grows, and to test new therapies in this model and patient-derived tumors. The ultimate goal is to identify new therapies that will extend the lives of children with ependymoma.

Based on the progress to date, Dr. Kuo was awarded a new grant in 2025 to fund an additional year of this Fellow grant.

Ewing sarcoma (EwS) is a malignant cancer of bone and soft tissues that occurs mainly in children, adolescents and young adults. If the tumors spread, fewer than 1/3 will survive. For some pediatric cancers, recent progress has led to new treatments that use one's own immune system to target cancer cells. However, immunotherapy has not been successful for EwS because we don't know enough about how EwS tumor cells evade the immune system. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is an intricate ecosystem consists of cancer cells and the host's immune system. Dr. Kuo's project will focus on dissecting the TME of EwS, to understand how tumors develop. Using EwS tumors removed from pediatric patients during their cancer diagnosis and treatment, Dr. Kuo will use newly-developed techniques to map the TME and use a genetic model of EwS developed at CHLA to examine tumor/immune cell interactions in living tissue. The long-term goal of this work is to identify new treatment options for children with EwS.

This grant is funded by and named for The Shohet Family Fund for Ewing Sarcoma Research. In his freshman year of college, Noah was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma. He endured many months of chemotherapy and had limb salvage surgery. Able to return to school, Noah had no evidence of disease for 2½ years until April 2018 when routine scans revealed he had relapsed. He passed away in May 2021 at the age of 25. Noah and his family were always passionate about the need for curative treatments for diseases of the AYA population. The Shohet family intends to raise funds for this Hero Fund in Noah's memory to find cures for Ewing sarcoma and to carry on his legacy of possibilities and hope.

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone tumor in children yet the survival rate remains low, below 75%. Children who are born with or develop certain mutations or who have been exposed to radiation or chemotherapy are more likely to get this cancer. However, not enough is known about how osteosarcomas develop. To learn more, researchers must better understand how normal bone cells become osteosarcoma cells. Dr. Cantor and colleagues have previously seen that patients with this cancer have elevated serum levels of abnormal DNA sequences (repetitive element DNAs) that may affect how these cells behave. Dr. Cantor and colleagues are creating models that mimic the cancer formation process to define the factors that drive the production of these abnormal DNA sequences and the effects of such sequences on the osteosarcoma cell behavior. Through these studies, Dr. Cantor hopes to learn more about this previously unrecognized abnormality. Better understanding of this process may allow researchers to develop new therapeutic approaches for children with osteosarcoma.

Based on the progress to date, Dr. Campbell was awarded a new grant in 2025 to fund an additional year of this Fellow grant.

The goal of this project is to engineer immune cells to target cancer, particularly a type of pediatric cancer called acute myeloid leukemia (AML). AML cells develop strategies to escape surveillance by the immune system. Despite current therapies, cancer cells are able to survive and progress. Natural killer (NK) cells play an important role in the immune response to cancer by recognizing and killing tumor cells. NK cell activity is regulated by activating and inhibitory receptors. Tumor cells express proteins that provide inhibitory signals to NK cells, blocking NK cell anti-tumor functions and allowing for tumor escape. Dr. Campbell and colleagues propose to tip the balance in favor of immune cell activation by knocking out a key NK cell inhibitory receptor, TIGIT. Dr. Campbell hypothesizes that eliminating NK cell TIGIT expression will remove inhibitory "brakes" on NK cell activation and enhance anti-tumor activity. The purpose of this study is to develop an effective cellular therapy for pediatric AML.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a blood cancer that sadly takes the lives of many children each year, and major efforts are being made to save these lives. One idea has been to teach the patient's body to fight off the AML like it would fight off an infection. This strategy alters the patient's immune system by making CAR-T cells, which are cells that fight cancer. CAR-T cells have been successful in curing patients with another similar type of blood cancer, but when it was tried in patients with AML, the approach was less successful. Dr. Anand's project is to understand why it didn't work as well so that further improvements that lead to cures for kids with AML can be made.

This grant is generously supported by the JJ's Angels Hero Fund which honors the memory of Juliana LaMonica and her courageous battle with AML.
Diagnosed at the age of two, Juliana underwent a bone marrow transplant but passed away shortly after turning three. Her sweet spirit and charismatic personality continue to inspire people to support the funding of pediatric cancer research through Team JJ’s Angels.

Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is the fastest growing, most aggressive pediatric tumor. In the 1960s, it was universally fatal. Over the past decades, clinical trials identified very high dose chemotherapy therapies as effective. Over 95% of children with BL in the US now survive. However, over 80% of cases of BL arise in children in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and other lower income regions where high dose chemotherapy is not currently feasible and in these settings BL is typically fatal. In the study, Dr. Allen builds on the observation that BL tumors from US and SSA are largely indistinguishable, but surprisingly tonsils from children in SSA and US have vastly different gene expression patterns. He therefore hypothesizes that the much higher rate of BL in SSA may not be due to intrinsic cancer cell factors, rather due to the nature of lymphoid tissues out of which the cancer cells grow. If Dr. Allen and colleagues can identify factors that lead to BL, they hope to create opportunities to prevent and treat BL in SSA.

This grant is funded by Danilo Gallinari and the National Basketball Players Association.

This proposal introduces four groundbreaking advancements in the treatment of Ewing sarcoma (EwS), a rare and aggressive cancer. Firstly, Dr. Li and colleagues aim to optimize and assess the effectiveness of cutting-edge anti-IL1RAP ADCs in treating EwS. Secondly, they seek to uncover new insights into the diversity and heterogeneity of targets within EwS tumors. Thirdly, will explore the potential of innovative bispecific ADCs to target a wider range of EwS cells, enhancing treatment efficacy and reducing the risk of relapse and spread. Lastly, Dr. Li will explore the possibility of applying these advancements to other IL1RAP+CD276+ cancers like acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Overall, this research holds promise for improving outcomes and broadening treatment options for patients with these challenging cancers. This grant is funded by and named for the D-Feet Cancer - The Dalton Fox Foundation. D-Feet Cancer - The Dalton Fox Foundation was established to honor and remember Dalton’s contagious smile and sense of humor, even on his toughest days with Ewing Sarcoma. He is an inspiration and the reason for the mission and interest in finding targeted therapies and treatments for Ewing Sarcoma, a pediatric bone cancer.

This grant supports a survivorship and Adolescent Young Adult (AYA) Clinical Research Coordinator to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

Developing new therapies from medicine to procedures is the best way to cure cancer and save lives. Clinical trials are research studies involving people of all ages to see if a new drug or medical device is safe and effective. One of the nation’s top children’s hospitals for cancer care, Lurie Children’s offers more pediatric clinical trials than any other hospital in the state. With more studies, their specialists have many options when treating a child with cancer. The success of a clinical trial depends on trained clinical research professionals (CRPs) to manage the study, from enrolling participants to reporting data in a timely and accurate manner. Like many healthcare professionals, CRPs are in high demand due to labor shortages and a very competitive marketplace. With more resources, we can better recruit, train and retain invaluable CRPs so we can provide every child with cancer access to innovative new therapies. This grant supports a clinical research coordinator to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

The grant is named in honor of the Do It for Dominic Fund. This Hero Fund was created in memory of Dominic Cairo, who died from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma at the age of 8. His family and friends continue to focus their efforts on raising funds and supporting St. Baldrick’s in the effort find cures for childhood cancers in the hopes that no child ever has to go through what Dominic had to endure.

New Mexico is a unique state with a largely rural, underserved, and multicultural patient population. This grant supports a clinical research professional to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure. Additionally, with increased enrollment of our unique patient population in these national and international clinical trials the University of New Mexico Pediatric Oncology Division will increase the diversity of patient representation in these trials.

This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

At Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, many patients are of minority background, and historically minorities have not always had the same access to health care. This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure. To run clinical trials safely and correctly, Clinical Research Associates are absolutely necessary.

This grant supports a clinical research professional to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

This grant supports a pediatric-focused Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

The Loma Linda University Children's Hospital (LLUCH) services a four-county region (San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo and Mono Counties). For the 1.3 million children living in this region, 25% come from families that live in poverty and are uninsured. This population represents 80% of the children treated here. This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure. The participation of this patient population in clinical trials is critical for the identification of therapies that can alleviate this health disparity and effectively treat all children.