St. Baldrick's Foundation Awards Over $2 Million in Grants to Fund the Next Generation of Pediatric Oncologists

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Mar 08, 2018, 09:00 ET

LOS ANGELES, March 8, 2018 /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 million, to support the next generation of St. Baldrick's Fellows and Summer Fellows at 27 institutions across the U.S.

St. Baldrick's Fellowship awards 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.

"Doing research as a clinician is exceedingly difficult. You're always pulled for time," explains Dr. Sharon Singh, the first St. Baldrick's Fellow award recipient in 2005 and current assistant professor at Western Michigan University. "Because I wasn't trained as a PhD, I had to first learn basic techniques when I started in the lab. St. Baldrick's really gave me that protected time, where I could learn some of the skills I needed to do research. Really, without that protected time – that support from St. Baldrick's – I definitely would not be in research."

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.

Through this year's Summer Fellow awards, 24 students will pursue pediatric cancer research projects at 19 institutions this summer – an experience that will not only result in valuable new research, but could also turn them into the next childhood cancer research trailblazers.

Since 2005, St. Baldrick's has granted more than $234 million to support the development of childhood cancer treatments that have the potential to impact every kid diagnosed with cancer.

The following institutions are receiving a St. Baldrick's Summer Fellow Grant or St. Baldrick's Fellowship Award:

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Mo.
Case Western Reserve University – School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio
Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Penn.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass.
Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C.
Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.
Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.
Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, N.Y.
The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, Davis, Calif.
UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, Calif.
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.
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Okla.
University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis.
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.
Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich.
Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, N.Y.

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.

To learn how you can get involved visit www.StBaldricks.org, and connect with St. Baldrick's on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo. Check out our website to find a local event or consider making a donation.

About St. Baldrick's Foundation
As the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants, the St. Baldrick's Foundation believes that kids are special and deserve to be treated that way. St. Baldrick's is leading the charge to take childhood back from cancer by funding 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 cancer treatments for kids.

SOURCE St. Baldrick's Foundation