2013 Annual Report: New Grants

The 2013 Annual Report for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has been released.  In this series of blogs, a number of key advancements and developments will be highlighted.  This report is an in-depth look at how your fundraising dollars are being spent and the medical breakthroughs and partnerships you are so crucial in creating.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is always working to find ways to ensure that the best and brightest researchers in the world of blood cancer research have the funds to complete their work and get us closer to a world without blood cancers.  LLS introduced a number of new grants in 2013 to achieve that goal.

New Idea.  This is a new grant program designed to identify highly novel research strategies with potential to fundamentally increase our understanding of specific blood cancers and significantly change the way blood cancer patients are diagnosed and treated.  This program supports academic researchers with approaches that are likely to help improve patient outcomes.  The researchers will receive a one-year $100,000 grant.

Screen to Lead.  LLS also recently solicited applications from researchers who are identifying (screening) potential drugs that inhibit recently discovered cancer-driving molecules (targets) and/or optimizing the chemical properties of novel inhibitors.  This Screen to Lead initiative acknowledges a significant need to help investigators discover and improve drug-like compounds that can be further tested in the lab and in the clinic.

Quest for Cures.  In February 2013, LLS asked the academic researcher community to propose research focusing on three priority areas:  Monitoring tumor cell heterogeneity and its contribution to response or resistance to therapy; molecular mechanisms to identify and direct subsets of patients with B-cell malignancies to the right therapy; and the roll of the tumor microenvironment in initiation and maintenance of blood cancers.  Quest for Cures is enabled by funding by Celgene through our new Targets Leads and Candidates Program.  This program identifies and funds priority research areas, with support from biotechnology and pharmaceutical company partners.

LLS continues to support the development of breakthrough cancer therapies in academic settings, committing substantial funding to researchers around the world.

Freebie Friday: New Ideas in Blood Cancer Research

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has recently developed a new grant concept to facilitate innovations in research and science. "The New Idea Award" grant concept funds untested treatment paradigms that are safer, more effective and substantically different from current therapies. Because these types of treatment are less likely to be funded by the traditional grants administered by the National Cancer Institute, the New Idea Award grant is crucial to ensuring the delivery of novel treatments and ultimately cures for more patients with blood cancers.

Applicants interested in the New Idea Award submit their innovative idea or approach as well as a method for testing it within the one-year grant period. Grants will be awarded up to $100,000 for the first year, after which applicants will be evaluated on the extent to which their innovative concept was substantiated based on initial testing. LLS plans to fund up to eight awards this first year and hopes that each new idea will help with the clinical advancement of cancer treatments.


A volunteer panel of researchers who are leaders in blood cancer treatment and research, chaired by Armand Keating, MD, Director of the Division of Hematology at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, will peer-review all grant applications. Panelists initially screened more than 100 applications and selected three dozen for review. After closely evaluating all applications, the panel will present their final recommendations in June for grants that will begin in October.

We look forward to releasing the names and projects of the winners of The New Grant Award later this year.