The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the U.S., has approved funding for two grants totaling $832,000 to researchers in upstate New York in the first of two grant cycles for 2018. The grants are among 110 national research and training grants totaling more than $47.6 million that will fund investigators at 72 institutions across the country in the latest round of funding.
The grants go into effect July 1.
Locally, the American Cancer Society has awarded a $792,000 multi-year research grant to John Ebos, Ph.D. at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
"The American Cancer Society research grant has changed the momentum of my work, providing financial stability for my lab and allowing me to find answers to questions we have been asking for more than ten years," Ebos said.
Patients with metastatic kidney cancer often stop treatment when the tumor becomes resistant to the drugs they are receiving. In many cases, the tumor can immediately begin to grow again. Ebos is studying a vaccine to inhibit the tumor growth that often happens when treatment has stopped, providing much-needed time to identify new treatment options for the patient.
Since 1946, the American Cancer Society has funded research and training of health professionals to investigate the causes, prevention and early detection of cancer, as well as new treatments, cancer survivorship and end of life support for patients and their families. In those 71 years, the American Cancer Society's extramural research grants program has devoted more than $4.6 billion to cancer research and is honored to have given funding to 47 investigators who went on to win the Nobel Prize.
The Council for Extramural Research also approved 90 grant applications totaling more than $43.1 million that could not be funded due to budgetary constraints. These "pay-if" applications represent work that passed the society's multidisciplinary review process but are beyond the society's current funding resources. They can be and often are subsidized by donors who wish to support research that would not otherwise be funded. In 2017, more than $11.5 million in additional funding helped finance 39 "pay-if" applications.
