Research and Grants Administration

The AACR grants program drives discovery in basic, translational, and clinical research by providing critical support to promising investigators at all career levels. Since 1993, the AACR has distributed more than $542 million in grants that sustain the pipeline of cancer scientists and accelerate progress for patients with cancer.

NEW PARTNERS AND NEW FUNDING MODELS DRIVE PROGRESS AGAINST CANCER

The AACR enhanced its grant portfolio in 2024 with two new funding partners and several new funding mechanisms:

AACR-KidneyCAN Innovation and Discovery Grants. The AACR welcomed KidneyCAN—a patient-founded organization dedicated to accelerating cures for kidney cancer—as a new funding partner in 2024. These new grants supported creative approaches to translate basic research into new treatment options for patients with kidney cancer.
AACR NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research. This flagship funding initiative was developed to stimulate highly innovative research from talented young investigators while helping them gain scientific independence. The grants promote and support creative, paradigm-shifting cancer research that may not be funded through conventional channels. The AACR offered new editions of this critical grant in 2024, thanks to the contributions of a new supporter and an existing partner:

Fanconi Cancer Foundation. The mission of the Fanconi Cancer Foundation is to improve the lives of people affected by Fanconi anemia (FA), a rare genetic disease whose patients are at significantly higher risk of developing squamous cell cancers of the head and neck, esophagus, and anogenital regions, in addition to an elevated risk for other solid tumors. In 2024, the AACR welcomed the foundation as a new funding partner for a NextGen Grant to foster highly innovative approaches to a major contemporary challenge in FA-related cancer research.
Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation (TNBC). A previous supporter of AACR grants, TNBC re-established its relationship with the AACR in 2024 to fund a NextGen Grant to promote groundbreaking research projects with the potential to transform our ability to understand, treat, detect, or prevent triple negative breast cancer.

AACR-AstraZeneca Fellowships. A longstanding funder of AACR grants, AstraZeneca increased its generous support in 2024 with the launch of two new fellowships. The AACR-AstraZeneca Endometrial Cancer Research Fellowship supported mentored research projects on any aspect of endometrial cancer, while the AACR-AstraZeneca Breast Cancer Research Fellowship for Endocrine Therapy Research supported research projects of any type that advance the field of endocrine therapy for breast cancer.
AACR-Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance (LBCA)-Deborah Mueller Foundation Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (ILC) Innovation and Discovery Grants. LBCA partnered with the AACR in 2021 to launch an ILC Research Fellowship program. The Alliance renewed this vital partnership in 2024, establishing a new grant mechanism to stimulate paradigm-shifting research on ILC and encourage translation of that research into new treatment options. The grants were supported by a gift from the Deborah Mueller Foundation, whose namesake was a surgeon, ILC patient, and advocate who served on the board of LBCA at the time of her death from the disease in 2023.

Marco Ruella, MD, is an assistant professor of medicine and the scientific director of the lymphoma program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2015, while working as a postdoctoral fellow in hematology at the University of Pennsylvania, he was awarded an AACR–Bristol Myers Squibb Oncology Fellowship in Clinical Cancer Research.

The grant enabled Dr. Ruella to explore the emerging area of cancer immunotherapy—specifically, the use of genetically engineered chimeric antigen reception T (CAR T) cells to enlist the body’s immune system to fight cancer. His team investigated a problem with treatments for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) that targeted the antigen CD19. Up to 30% of B-ALL patients treated with CD19-targeted CAR T immunotherapy suffer relapses in which CD19 disappears from the cancer cells, rendering them impervious to the initial therapy.

Dr. Ruella and his colleagues identified another antigen, CD123, that remained on B-ALL cells even after relapse following CD19-targeted therapy. Dr. Ruella conducted experiments in animal models and showed that using CAR T cells to target both CD19 and CD123 was effective against B-ALL and also prevented disease relapse. His published findings, which were made possible by his AACR-BMS grant, paved the way for the development of several dual-targeted CAR T therapies that have improved the lives of cancer patients:

“It takes time for these therapies to get from mice to humans. You need preclinical studies to generate these therapies. And that’s exactly what the AACR supports with these fellowships.”

Learn more about Dr. Ruella’s work in AACR Stories.

Grants were awarded in 2024 to meritorious scientists from 45 institutions to support innovative cancer science.

371

Expert scientists served on 20 scientific review committees to select the 2024 grant recipients. The AACR is a trusted administrator of research grants, providing fair, rigorous, and transparent peer review.

$6.26 million

Amount awarded to 32 independent investigators at all career levels—including young investigators, mid-career researchers, and established scientists—to support meritorious cancer research.

$1.89 million

Amount of research grant funding awarded to 16 postdoctoral and clinical fellows to advance their career development in 2024.

928

Applications for AACR grants from the United States and 53 other countries were evaluated in 2024.

A supporting organization to the Entertainment Industry Foundation, Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) supports collaborative, translational cancer research in order to accelerate the development of new cancer treatments. The AACR is proud to serve as the Scientific Partner to SU2C, providing expert peer review, scientific oversight, policy guidance, communications, and grants administration to ensure that SU2C’s investment in groundbreaking research has the greatest benefit for cancer patients.

SU2C SCIENTIFIC SUMMIT: REVIEWING RESULTS, PLANNING FUTURE PROGRESS

Collaboration and accountability are critical elements of the SU2C funding model. By bringing together stakeholders on a regular basis, SU2C and the AACR monitor the progress of funded research projects and encourage project leaders to explore new opportunities to work together. In January, AACR staff worked with the SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee to host the annual SU2C Scientific Summit. Grantees, leaders, Scientific Advisors, and donors gathered in San Diego to share data, celebrate successes, and establish new collaborations to benefit patients with cancer.

DRIVING PROGRESS THROUGH PARTNERSHIP

Collaboration is at the heart of SU2C’s mission. While the annual SU2C Scientific Summit is a critical driver of that collaborative spirit, SU2C also encourages cooperative progress through funding models such as the SU2C Innovation in Collaboration Awards; these awards are presented to Scientific Summit attendees who work together to develop research projects, submit proposals, and receive funding during the Summit.

During the SU2C Scientific Summit, the Scientific Advisory Committee awarded three Innovation in Collaboration Awards totaling $750,000 that were administered by the AACR:

Cless Family Gastric Cancer Innovation in Collaboration Award. Collaborators Karuna Ganesh, MD, PhD, and Christina Curtis, PhD, received support for their project titled “Spatial profiling and organoid:immune co-cultures to develop multimodal predictive biomarkers for CIN gastro-esophageal cancer.”
Phillip A. Sharp Innovation in Collaboration Awards. Named for Phillip A. Sharp, PhD, the Nobel Laureate and Fellow of the AACR Academy who served as the founding chair of the SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee, these AACR-administered grants support the following research projects:

“Neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade in mismatch repair proficient locally advanced rectal cancer,” led by Andrea Cercek, MD, and Aparna Parikh, MD.
“Bacterial whispers: Small-talk shapes mammalian immunity,” led by Shawn M. Davidson, PhD, and Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD.

Research and Grants Administration

Investing in the Future of Cancer Research

NEW PARTNERS AND NEW FUNDING MODELS DRIVE PROGRESS AGAINST CANCER

The AACR and Stand Up To Cancer: Working Together to Drive Progress for Patients

SU2C SCIENTIFIC SUMMIT: REVIEWING RESULTS, PLANNING FUTURE PROGRESS

DRIVING PROGRESS THROUGH PARTNERSHIP