St. Baldrick's Foundation Awards Over $2.7 Million in Grants to Fund the Next Generation of Pediatric Oncologists

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Apr 29, 2019, 12:00 ET

LOS ANGELES, April 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The St. Baldrick's Foundation, the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants, is proud to announce its newest round of grants, totaling more than $2.7 million, to support the next generation of St. Baldrick's Fellows and Summer Fellows at 32 institutions across the U.S.

Since 2005, the St. Baldrick's Foundation has put a high priority on providing the funding necessary to train early career scientists so that they can pursue a career in the pediatric cancer field.

"During St. Baldrick's very first grant year, the field understood that if more young pediatric oncology researchers were not trained or given the resources to continue their studies, there would be a shortage of people with the expertise to carry on research to find new cures for kids as the current experts began to retire," said Kathleen Ruddy, St. Baldrick's CEO. "With guidance from scientific thought leaders, we created the Fellow and later the Summer Fellow grant categories to ensure we are supporting bright young minds that will pave the future in finding new cures and treatments for all childhood cancers."

To date, St. Baldrick's has supported 212 students through 175 St. Baldrick's Summer Fellow grants and funded 134 St. Baldrick's Fellows, some of who have gone on to become recognized already as leaders in their field.

"I can't emphasize enough that the Foundation saved an enterprise," said Dr. Jeff Lipton, St. Baldrick's Foundation Board Member and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee. "The support the St. Baldrick's Foundation has shown for researchers at a time when support for important research is more difficult to garner, not just in allowing them to be innovative and brilliant, but in giving them the time, resources, and runway to showcase that innovation and brilliance is key. Without that support, we'd be hanging on by our fingernails."

St. Baldrick's Fellow grants provide two to three years of research funding to young doctors training to become pediatric oncology researchers. This grant provides them with protected time in the lab to learn new skills and gives them a launchpad to even bigger research opportunities and, hopefully, a career as an independent researcher with their own lab.

St. Baldrick's Summer Fellow grants give college and medical students the chance to spend their summer working in childhood cancer research labs under the mentorship of experts in the field – an experience that will not only result in valuable new research but could also turn them into the next childhood cancer research trailblazers.

The following institutions are receiving a St. Baldrick's Fellow grant:

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, Mass.
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Columbia University, New York, N.Y.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass.
Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, Baltimore, Md.
NYU School of Medicine, New York, N.Y.
Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Wash.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.
Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Ala.
University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colo.

The following institutions are receiving a St. Baldrick's Summer Fellow grant:

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio
Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.
Cleveland Clinic Children's, Cleveland, Ohio
Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Wash.
Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, D.C.
Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
Indiana University School of Medicine, Bloomington, Ind.
Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, Calif.
Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Ore.
Penn State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pa.
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio
The University of Mississippi Medical Center, University, Miss.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tenn.
University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colo.
University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, Hawaii
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Since 2005, St. Baldrick's has granted more than $262 million to support the development of childhood cancer treatments that have the potential to impact every kid diagnosed with cancer. This series of grants is the first of several that will be awarded by the Foundation this year. The next round of funding will be announced in July.

Join the fight. Register. Fundraise. Show-up. Shave. You can help save kids' lives. Connect with St. Baldrick's on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo.

About St. Baldrick's Foundation
As the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants, the St. Baldrick's Foundation is leading the charge to take childhood back from cancer. St. Baldrick's funds some of the most brilliant childhood cancer research experts who are working to find cures and better treatments for all childhood cancers. Kids need treatments as unique as they are – and that starts with funding research just for them. Join us at StBaldricks.org to help support the best childhood cancer research, no matter where it takes place.

SOURCE St. Baldrick's Foundation