The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research in New York City has announced the recipients of its 2023 Endeavor Award grants totaling $12 million.

Four teams of scientists across seven institutions will receive three-year grants of $3 million each to tackle urgent challenges in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. The Endeavor Award program is designed to accelerate progress in high-priority research areas through a collaborative approach among investigators with diverse areas of expertise.

This year’s funded projects are “Harnessing Senescence Biology for Immuno-oncology,” led by Scott Lowe at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; “Inflammatory Drivers of the Obesity-Cancer Connection,” led by Jeffrey Rathmell at Vanderbilt University; “Engineering Multi-modal Immunotherapies Against Small-Cell Neuroendocrine Tumors,” led by Julien Sage at Stanford School of Medicine; and “Personalized T cell-directed Cancer Immunotherapy,” led by Catherine Wu at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“These four teams of scientists are poised to take on some major questions in cancer research,” said Ross Levine, chair of the foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee. “From the bioengineering of novel cell therapies for a class of lethal cancers, to a deep dive into the connections between obesity, inflammation, and cancer, these projects bring new approaches to longstanding obstacles facing cancer patients.”

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