Biomedical, Clinical & Life Sciences

No Applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1 

These grants fund new research protocols and therapies that hold promise for improved outcomes and accelerates cures from the laboratory bench to the bedside of children and teens with high- risk cancers. This Grant is given to single or multi-institutional programs that involve open, cancer clinical trials or consortia, and implement new approaches to therapy. Applicants must be a PhD and/or MD.

Grant Criteria and Eligibility:

• The probability of an advance in prevention, diagnosis or treatment for the near-term
• The novelty of the concept and strategy
• The clarity of presentation
• The overall plan for bringing the research findings to clinical application
• Experience, background, and qualifications of the investigators
• Adequacy of resources and environment (facilities, patients, etc.)
• PCRF only funds non-profit institutions and they must be located in the US.
• PCRF does not have citizenship requirements for our investigators. However, the Principal Investigator needs to be employed by a non-profit U.S. institution that has an affiliation with a hospital.
• Basic Science Research and Translational Grants require the applicant to be a PhD and/or MD.
• Emerging Investigator applicants must have completed two years of their fellowship, or not more than two years as a junior faculty instructor or assistant professor at the start of the award period.

No Applicants  //  Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1 

These grants are designed to support Post-Doctoral Fellowships and Clinical Investigator training for emerging pediatric cancer researchers to pursue exciting research ideas. Applicants must have completed two years of their fellowship or not more than two years as a junior faculty instructor or assistant professor at the start of the award period. These grants encourage and cultivate the best and brightest researchers of the future.

Grant Criteria and Eligibility:

• The probability of an advance in prevention, diagnosis or treatment for the near-term
• The novelty of the concept and strategy
• The clarity of presentation
• The overall plan for bringing the research findings to clinical application
• Experience, background, and qualifications of the investigators
• Adequacy of resources and environment (facilities, patients, etc.)
• PCRF only funds non-profit institutions and they must be located in the US.
• PCRF does not have citizenship requirements for our investigators. However, the Principal Investigator needs to be employed by a non-profit U.S. institution that has an affiliation with a hospital.
• Basic Science Research and Translational Grants require the applicant to be a PhD and/or MD.
• Emerging Investigator applicants must have completed two years of their fellowship, or not more than two years as a junior faculty instructor or assistant professor at the start of the award period.

Limit: 2* // Tickets Available: 2

• Science & Engineering Track - M. Van Dyke ( Bioengineering)
• Medical Research Track - M. Cai (Chemistry & Biochemistry)

Please note the internal deadline has been extended to May 8, 2024. 

*UA may submit one concept paper in Physical Sciences and Engineering and one concept paper in Medical Sciences in this cycle.
The selected projects must participate in the concept counseling session with the W.M. Keck Foundation between July 1 and August 15 to determine if they can proceed to the Phase I submission.

The W.M. Keck Foundation Research Program uses a three-step process for this opportunity. The first step is a Concept paper. The Undergraduate Education program is currently not accepting concept papers. The next steps are by the foundation’s invitation. UArizona review criteria reflect previous interactions with the W.M. Keck Foundation. Proposals should focus on basic, fundamental science with broad applications. Grants range from $1 million to $5 million and are typically $2 million or less.

The proposed work should show a significant leap forward rather than an extension of existing work.  

To be considered by Keck, applicants must have a statement from a federal program officer expressing that the project is not a good fit due to risk (rather than technical or theoretical fit) or a decline from a federal program where the summary statement or individual reviews highlight the incredible novelty, but the high-risk nature that makes it difficult to fund at the federal level.

The Science and Engineering Research Program seeks to benefit humanity by supporting high-risk/high-impact projects that are distinctive and novel in their approach to intractable problems, push the edge of their field, or question the prevailing paradigm. Past grants have been awarded to support pioneering science and engineering research and the development of promising new technologies, instrumentation, or methodologies. 

The Medical Research Program seeks to advance the frontiers of medicine to benefit humanity by supporting high-risk/high-impact projects that are distinctive and novel in their approach to intractable problems, push the edge of their field, or question the prevailing paradigm. Past grants have supported pioneering biological research, basic research, and the development of promising new technologies. The Keck Foundation does NOT fund work that is clinical, applied, or translational; treatment trials; or research for the sole purpose of drug development. 

Both senior and early career investigators are encouraged to apply. Team approaches, including interdisciplinary teams, are encouraged.

No applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

T. Kalin ( Phoenix Children’s Research Institute -Translational Research) Subaward 

Hyundai Hope On Wheels® [“HHOW”] is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that joined the fight against childhood cancer in 1998. The organization funds life-saving research and creates awareness for childhood cancer. Since its inception, HHOW has donated more than $225 million to fund pediatric cancer research. 

In 2024, the following categories of research grants for pediatric cancer are available per this RFP: 

• Hope Scholar Grant: $400,000 (two-year award), please see pages 4-5 for details. 

• Young Investigator Grant: $250,000 (two-year award), please see page 6 for details. 

Eligibility to apply for a Hope Scholar or Young Investigator Grant is limited to Children’s Oncology Group (“COG”) member institutions in the U.S. Each eligible institution may submit up to one application per grant category. Applicants will be notified by March 15, 2024, about grant awardees. If selected, the first funding installment is planned for release on December 31, 2024. Approved research projects may begin upon receipt of the initial grant award disbursement. If selected, material conditions for the institution that receives a grant are to agree to all terms and conditions of the grant agreement, and to agree to host a Hyundai Hope On Wheels handprint ceremony at its location or virtually during August or September of 2024. 

No applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1

Hyundai Hope On Wheels® [“HHOW”] is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that joined the fight against childhood cancer in 1998. The organization funds life-saving research and creates awareness for childhood cancer. Since its inception, HHOW has donated more than $225 million to fund pediatric cancer research. 

In 2024, the following categories of research grants for pediatric cancer are available per this RFP: 

• Hope Scholar Grant: $400,000 (two-year award), please see pages 4-5 for details. 

• Young Investigator Grant: $250,000 (two-year award), please see page 6 for details. 

Eligibility to apply for a Hope Scholar or Young Investigator Grant is limited to Children’s Oncology Group (“COG”) member institutions in the U.S. Each eligible institution may submit up to one application per grant category. Applicants will be notified by March 15, 2024, about grant awardees. If selected, the first funding installment is planned for release on December 31, 2024. Approved research projects may begin upon receipt of the initial grant award disbursement. If selected, material conditions for the institution that receives a grant are to agree to all terms and conditions of the grant agreement, and to agree to host a Hyundai Hope On Wheels handprint ceremony at its location or virtually during August or September of 2024. 

 Limit: 1 // K. Lutrick (Research, Family & Community Medicine) & K. Ellingson (Epidemiology and Biostatistics)

Only one application per institution (normally identified by having a unique entity identifier [UEI] number) is allowed. 

The purpose of this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to establish: 1) a multi-site community-based cohort study that would allow close monitoring of the burden of acute respiratory illness in the community, contributions of various respiratory viruses to this burden, and the impact of vaccination and other interventions on risk of infection and/or severe outcomes, and 2) a case-ascertained household transmission study (or multi-site study) that would support ongoing assessment of transmission dynamics of respiratory viruses of interest and factors (i.e., demographic, clinical, or household-level factors) that may impact transmission.

While hospital-based platforms are key to assessing frequency and risk factors for severe disease, community-based platforms are essential for understanding age-specific incidences of infection, risk factors for infection, socioeconomic burden of infections (such as days of work/school lost), and the clinical spectrum of illness. They are important for characterizing the immune response to infection or reinfection and long-term outcomes, and they are key to understanding the impact of individual- and household-level mitigation factors (including but not limited to vaccination) on all of these measures. This type of network may be especially useful for detecting changes in any of these factors when a new virus or viral variant begins circulating.

Case-ascertained household transmission studies are well-positioned to quickly and efficiently enable us to understand transmission dynamics of respiratory viruses (or sublineages/types of existing viruses that undergo frequent mutation, such as SARS-CoV-2 and influenza) and assess potential mitigation factors. These studies can also be valuable for characterizing viral shedding dynamics and infectiousness. These studies were key during the COVID-19 pandemic to understanding if changes in hospitalization rates were due to changes in transmissibility/infection rates versus changes in severity of illness. They are also great resources for assessing how history of vaccination or prior history of infection effect transmission to close contacts.

This NOFO would build on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and establish a consolidated network of community cohorts to monitor a range of respiratory viruses among community members who develop symptoms of acute respiratory illness. Incorporation of multi-pathogen testing will allow us to better understand the relative contribution of various viruses to the overall community burden of respiratory disease now in the post-pandemic setting, and how the clinical spectrum of these illnesses compare, in a setting in which multiple new preventive products are becoming available. This would also support the establishment of a case-ascertained transmission study (or multi-site study) that would be able to assess SARS-CoV-2, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and other prioritized respiratory viruses on an ongoing basis.

The combination of these studies will generate much greater visibility on risk factors for infection and the effectiveness of various interventions in reducing infections and viral transmission, factors that are relevant to reducing overall morbidity and mortality related to respiratory viruses. Should a new variant or virus arrive, this platform would be well positioned to further expand testing to better understand potential concerns like proportion symptomatic, timing of transmission, likelihood of asymptomatic transmission and other related questions. Such questions may be key to developing public health guidance should additional mitigation measures become necessary.

Limit: 2 // Tickets Available: 1

S. Soto (Public Health)

To encourage a commitment to breast cancer research, Breast Cancer Alliance invites clinical doctors and research scientists who are in the early stages of their careers, including post docs, whose current proposal is focused on breast cancer, to apply for funding for the Young Investigator Grant. This grant is open to applicants at institutions in the contiguous United States. This is a two-year grant for a total of $125,000, with half the grant award being paid out each year.

Applicants for the 2025 award must (i) not have held a tenure track faculty or tenure track research position for more than four years following completion of their training, as of March 1, 2025; (ii) not have been or are not a principal investigator on an NIH R01 or equivalent national/international non-mentored award as of March 1, 2025; and (iii) dedicate at least 50% of their work effort to research. This grant is intended to help advance the careers of young researchers who do not yet have their own major grant support but who design and conduct their own independent research projects.

The term of the Young Investigator Grant is two years, beginning on March 1, 2025. The grant provides salary support and project costs for a total of $125,000 (distributed over the two-year period as noted above.) Indirect costs, which are included in the $125,000 award, must be limited to 8% of total direct costs. 

Limit: 2 // Tickets Available: 1

G. Sutphin (Molecular and Cellular Biology)

The mission of Breast Cancer Alliance is to improve survival rates and quality of life for those impacted by breast cancer through better prevention, early detection, treatment and cure. To promote these goals, we invest in innovative research, breast surgery fellowships, regional education, dignified support and screening for the underserved.

The research project must be directly related to the field of breast cancer. Areas of relevant research may include but are not limited to: diagnosis, etiology, immunology, genetics and epigenetics, therapies, prevention and clinical studies.

No applicants // Limit: 1 // Tickets Available: 1 

The University of Arizona Cancer Center (UACC) can nominate one application for this funding program.
For more information, please contact: UACC-PreAward.

UACC Limited Submission Information:

The University of Arizona Cancer Center (UACC) can nominate one applicant for the V Foundation Women Scientists Innovation Award for Cancer Research 2024.

Purpose of Award:

The UACC is seeking nominations for the Women Scientists Innovation Award for Cancer Research which supports women cancer researchers and is restricted to adult cancer research. 

Sustaining the careers of women in research and preventing the loss of women from academic careers focused on cancer is paramount to accomplishing the V Foundation’s mission. Women are underrepresented in many STEM fields and this disparity becomes more pronounced further along the career continuum. To make significant progress towards Victory Over Cancer®, we need all voices at the table. The V Foundation’s Women Scientists Innovation Award for Cancer Research helps promote inclusion for women in cancer research while supporting the most cutting-edge proposals.

Applicant Eligibility

Nominee must meet all of the following criteria by the nomination due date:

• Self-identify as a woman
• Nominated by their Cancer Center Director or similar high ranking research official.
• Employed at a non-profit research institution (e.g., 501c3, Section 170).
• See additional criteria for Translational and V Scholar mechanisms listed in corresponding RFA and Supporting Documents.

If you have any question concerning eligibility and details regarding the opportunity, please contact the Grants Team at Grants@v.org in advance of applying.

For any other questions, please contact UACC-PreAward@arizona.edu.

Institutionally Coordinated // Limit: 1
Please contact RDS for more information. 

This award recognizes an outstanding assistant-level faculty member who demonstrates leadership potential in addressing inequity in medical education and health care; demonstrates efforts in addressing educational, societal, and health care needs of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States; and is committed to a career in academic medicine.

The recipient receives a $25,000 grant to support a project performed in the United States to support racial and ethnic minorities. Recipients are required to accept the award at Learn Serve Lead 2024: The AAMC Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA.

A medical school may nominate one current faculty member per year for this award. A candidate must:

• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• Hold the rank of full-time assistant professor in a LCME-accredited U.S. medical school department.
• Have held the assistant professor position appointment beginning no earlier than July 1, 2021.
• Have received only one appointment as assistant professor.
• Hold a MD, PhD, or have earned another doctoral degree.