The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research announced 16 outstanding projects in its latest class of ASPIRE awards, granting more than $5 million for research that aims to answer key feasibility and proof-of-concept questions in an accelerated time frame, and scaling for impact based upon initial success. The high-risk nature of these projects, often based on new ideas that have generated limited preliminary data, tends to place them outside the scope of other funding opportunities.
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These new awards cover research into multiple types of adult and pediatric cancers, encompassing both solid tumors and blood cancers. Of note, two of the projects result from a request for proposals following a Mark Foundation scientific workshop on pediatric brain tumors, which convened worldwide experts to dream up novel solutions to the critical problem that brain tumors kill more children than any other cancer.
The Mark Foundation’s commitment to interdisciplinary research and global collaboration is also embodied by these new grants, with many different fields of study represented including genetics, chemical biology, artificial intelligence (AI), immuno-oncology, biophysics, and cancer prevention. For example, two of the projects will apply state-of-the-art technologies in AI and structural biology to study the T-cell receptor, a signaling node that is key for successful cancer immunotherapies. Another project brings together laboratories from the United Kingdom and Australia working on lung cancer and breast cancer to collaborate on cancer prevention and protection.
“These ASPIRE awards will enable trailblazing approaches to help solve some of the biggest challenges in cancer research today,” said Ryan Schoenfeld, CEO, The Mark Foundation. “I’m excited to see these projects embracing the high-risk / high-reward spirit of the program and covering such a broad range of important scientific questions and different cancer types that represent areas of high unmet need for patients.”
Launched in 2018, The Mark Foundation ASPIRE Award program has provided 118 grants totaling over $48 million across 63 different research institutions in 12 countries.
via Mark Foundation
