The Fox Family Joins Forces with The Lustgarten Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer to Fund New Dream Team
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Submissions Due November 7
PHILADELPHIA — The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is now accepting submissions of ideas for the Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence Dream Team Translational Research Grant, which will offer up to $8 million over a three-year period. The Lustgarten Foundation is providing $4 million in funding for this team. Collectively, the Fox Family Cancer Research Funding Trust and the Fox Family Foundation are making a $5 million gift to Stand Up To Cancer, $4 million of which is supporting this particular team.
Nobel laureate Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., describes convergence research as an exciting new approach that brings together the biological, computational, physical, and engineering sciences and entails not only collaboration among research groups, but also the integration of disciplinary approaches that were originally viewed as separate and distinct.
The grant provides three years of funding for research projects that must include therapeutic interventions for pancreatic cancer and deliver near-term patient benefit through investigation by a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional convergence Dream Team of experts. The project must bring together biology (e.g. genomics, epigenetics, proteomics, and/or other biological fields) and at least one additional field of research such as physics, engineering, or immunology.
Proposals for the grant must describe plans indicating how the group will use a transformative and synergistic approach, and how the work will be translated into the clinic. To maximize creativity, innovation, and collaboration, the projects should span multiple disciplines and use modern scientific tools to attack research questions in a coordinated effort. In particular, the use of convergence research is required, which in addition to biology, aims to capitalize on a range of fields such as computer science, engineering design, immunology, and nanotechnology.
A SU2C-Lustgarten Joint Scientific Advisory Committee (JSAC) will conduct a unique, interactive, rapid, and rigorous evaluation of the applications via a multistep scientific review process. The JSAC is comprised of highly accomplished senior laboratory researchers and physician-scientists, as well as advocates.
The committee is chaired by Nobel laureate Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., institute professor at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is co-chaired by William G. Kaelin, Jr., M.D., professor in the Department of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and associate director of basic science at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center; and David Tuveson, M.D., Ph.D., director for research of The Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Research Lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and director of research for The Lustgarten Foundation.
Letters of Intent for SU2C-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence Dream Team Translational Research Grant projects are due by noon ET on Nov. 7, 2013, via proposalCENTRAL.
For general information on eligibility criteria, the application process, and other details about this Dream Team grant, visit www.AACR.org/SU2CFunding. Inquiries may be directed to the AACR Scientific Review and Grants Administration Department at 267-765-1049 or su2c@aacr.org.
The SU2C-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence Dream Team Translational Research Grant recipients are scheduled to be announced in spring 2014.
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