The St. Baldrick's Foundation in Monrovia, California, has announced grants totaling more than $22 million in support of childhood cancer research.

Grant recipients include two inaugural St. Baldrick's International Scholars — a new funding category designed to support researchers from low- and middle- income countries. Grants totaling more than $636,000 over two years were awarded to Joseph Lubega of the Baylor College of Medicine and the Uganda Cancer Institute, whose work focuses on African Burkitt's lymphoma, the most prevalent cancer among Ugandan children, and Soad Fuentes Alabi of Boston Children's Hospital and Hospital Nacional de Niños Benjamin Bloom in El Salvador, who will study the epidemiology and biology of childhood cancer in South America and work to establish a cancer registry in the region.

The foundation also awarded $1.4 million in one-year research grants for hypothesis-driven projects focused on developing new and better treatments; more than $5.8 million in multiyear grants; and $6.1 million in grants to the Children's Oncology Group, a cooperative research group with two hundred member institutions. In addition, four current St. Baldrick's Fellows received an additional $1.4 million in funding, while fifteen young researchers were awarded a total of $3.5 million in new and extended St. Baldrick's Scholars grants.

"These grants are one step toward filling the critical gap that exists between the research dollars spent per child with cancer and those spent per adult," said St. Baldrick's CEO Kathleen Ruddy. "When one considers the total landscape of available funding from government, industry, and philanthropy, it is apparent children are being left behind. Great progress has been made in treatments for many types of cancers that plague adults, but the same level of progress has been made in only a few forms of cancer in children. That needs to change."

For a complete list of grant recipients visit the St. Baldrick's Foundation Web site.