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AACR presents grant for transformative cancer research
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The American Association for Cancer Research named Birgit Knoechel, MD, PhD, as the inaugural recipient of the AACR-The Mark Foundation NextGen Grant for Transformative Cancer Research.
The grant program, AACR’s flagship funding initiative, is designed to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators.
The grant provides $450,000 over 3 years to support creative, paradigm-shifting cancer research that may not be funded through conventional channels.
Knoechel, a physician-scientist and pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will use the grant to examine how variation in a population of cancer cells can contribute to resistance to targeted therapy among children with leukemia. She hopes these insights will lead to strategies that overcome resistance and successfully treat children with acute T cell lymphoblastic leukemia.
“We are extremely grateful to The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research for its support of this important grant, which will provide critical funding to an early career researcher looking to make her groundbreaking ideas reality, and to solidify her independence as a cancer scientist,” Mitch Stoller, executive director of the AACR Foundation, said in a press release.
Since the NextGen Grants program launched in 2015, AACR has worked with several partners who demonstrated a commitment to advancing scientific discoveries in cancer and promoting the career development of the next generation of cancer scientists.
The new partnership with The Mark Foundation is expected to further enhance the innovative nature of the program by funding work that integrates discoveries in biology and technology to advance the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
“We are thrilled to partner with AACR on this important NextGen grant,” Michele Cleary, PhD, CEO of The Mark Foundation, said in the release. “The innovative spirit of this award, Dr. Knoechel’s accomplishments, and the potential impact of her research proposal are highly aligned with our mission to support scientists and projects well positioned to accelerate breakthroughs to patients.”