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NCCN Foundation Announces 2012 Young Investigator Awards
The NCCN Foundation has awarded the second series of Young Investigator Awards to four young investigators from NCCN Member Institutions. The 2012 awards focus on assessing and improving outcomes of cancer care and provide grants of $150,000 over a two-year period.
FORT WASHINGTON, PA— The NCCN Foundation, which through private philanthropy and grants, advances the mission of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) to improve the quality and effectiveness of care for patients with cancer, has awarded grants to four young investigators from NCCN Member Institutions dedicated to advancing and discovering new treatments for cancer. These awards represent the second series of the NCCN Foundation Young Investigator Awards, a program initiated in 2011. Each of the funded research initiatives will focus on assessing or improving outcomes of cancer care and provide grants of $150,000 over a two-year period. Funding will begin September 1, 2012.
The goal of the NCCN Foundation Young Investigator Awards is to cultivate the next generation of cancer researchers at NCCN Member Institutions. We are very proud that we are able to continue to support young investigators at a time when defining quality in cancer care and supporting science is so essential, said Cindy McGirk, RN, MBA, JD, Executive Director, Foundation & Legal Affairs, at NCCN.
Congratulations to the 2012 awardees:
Piero Dalerba, MD, Instructor of Medicine, Stanford Cancer Institute. Dr. Dalerba`s research initiative is titled Evaluation of CDX2 as a novel predictive biomarker to guide therapeutic algorithm design in colon cancer.
Crystal Denlinger, MD, Assistant Professor, Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Denlinger`s research initiative is titled Adherence to NCCN survivorship care guidelines in non-small cell lung cancer and colorectal cancer survivor care.
Ronan Kelly, MD, MBA, Assistant Professor, The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Kelly`s research initiative is titled Assessing the impact on chemotherapy decision making while utilizing the NCCN Guidelines when the cost of each regimen is provided to prescribers and patients.
Elissa Ozanne, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Ozanne`s research initiative is titled Impact of implementing the NCCN Guidelines for genetic/familial high-risk assessment: breast and ovarian in clinical practice.
The awardees responded to a Request for Proposal (RFP) issued by the NCCN Foundation to the 21 NCCN Member Institutions. All submissions were reviewed by a multidisciplinary panel of oncology experts, and the awardees were selected based on several key components, including scientific merit and study design.
The Young Investigator Awards represent a significant initiative for NCCN and the NCCN Foundation to support promising young researchers in oncology. It was exciting to again see so many excellent proposals, addressing many different cancer types and issues, said F. Marc Stewart, MD, Medical Director, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a member of the review committee.
These awards were made possible via contributions from the following companies: Abbott Labs, Celgene, Genentech, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, and Teva.
About the NCCN Foundation
The NCCN Foundation was initiated in 2010, with a key goal in the first year of raising funds for the development and distribution of the NCCN Guidelines for Patients™. Nine of these guidelines for patients are now available with another three planned for 2012. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients™ use the same treatment algorithms that are the hallmark of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®), but are translated into a more user-friendly format utilizing language for non-professional audiences. The Young Investigator Awards represent another major programmatic initiative for the NCCN Foundation.