The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation in New York City has announced grants totaling $4.2 million in support of patient-oriented clinical research that is critical to finding cures for cancer.

The foundation named five early-career physician-scientists as its 2022 Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators, with each receiving $600,000 over three years to develop their projects as well as further assistance with research costs and the purchase of equipment. In addition, the foundation will retire up to $100,000 of medical school debt owed by each recipient. Since 2000, the foundation has committed more than $80 million to bolster the careers of 119 physician-scientists.

The Clinical Investigator Award program is designed to help address the shortage of physicians capable of translating scientific discovery into new breakthroughs for cancer patients. The 2022 cohort includes Daniel J. Delitto (Stanford University) to develop immunotherapy regimens for pancreatic cancer; Xiuning Le (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston) to develop targeted treatments for EGFR mutations that do not respond to typical therapies; Nathan Singh (Washington University in St. Louis) to further understanding of engineered T cell and blood cancer cell interactions that result in therapeutic failure; Melody Smith (Stanford) to investigate how the intestinal microbiome affects CAR T cell therapy; and Aaron D. Viny (Columbia University) to determine the effect of DNA methylation on specific regions of the genome.

In addition, the foundation—in collaboration with the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation—awarded “continuation” grants to three current Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators, providing an additional two years of funding, totaling $400,000 each to enable them to continue work on promising avenues of research or clinical trials. Recipients include Jennifer M. Kalish (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia), who is studying Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, a rare hereditary condition; Matthew G. Oser (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston), who is developing targeted therapies for small-cell lung cancer; and Kavita Y. Sarin (Stanford) who is working to identify tools for early diagnosis of basal cell cancer.

“The quality of research proposed by our clinical investigators is exceptionally strong,” said Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation president and CEO Yung S. Lie. “We are thrilled to be funding brave and bold physician-scientists who are taking risks to experimentally address the most important questions in cancer research and then translate them into improving patients' lives.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/howtogoto)