Lung cancer continues to be the number one cause of cancer deaths worldwide, accounting for an estimated 136,000 deaths annually in the United States alone. Despite significant advances in lung cancer treatment, the disease remains the most common cancer killer of both men and women. New treatment modalities such as targeted therapies and immune therapies also pose new and unique challenges. To help address the most profound of these challenges, the 2021 LCRF-AstraZeneca grant program aims to fund innovative projects to:
• Understand primary and acquired resistance to osimertinib and novel combinations targeting concurrent driver mutations
• Develop more effective approaches to address disease progression in patients treated with durvalumab
• Discover novel biomarkers for predicting response to osimertinib or durvalumab and to identify patients who are at higher risk of recurrence (translational research preferred)
• Identify predictive biomarkers, understand the underlying biology and develop novel interventions for immune mediated adverse events, such as pneumonitis, in patients receiving durvalumab
Awards made through this funding mechanism will provide investigators up to $150,000 in funding over a period of two years. Proposals which specifically focus on either osimertinib or durvalumab will be strongly favored.
Lung cancer continues to be the number one cause of cancer deaths worldwide, accounting for an estimated 136,000 deaths annually in the United States alone. Despite being the most common cancer killer of both men and women, lung cancer research remains critically underfunded. To help close this gap and improve outcomes, the goal of the LCRF pilot grant program is to fund innovative projects across the full spectrum of basic, translational, clinical, epidemiological, health services, and other research. 2021 LCRF pilot grants will provide $150,000 over a period of two years for projects focused on one or more of the following topics:
• Lung cancer biology
• Prevention and screening for early detection
• Identification of new biomarkers
• Development of more effective and less toxic therapies including but not limited to targeted and immune-therapies
• Mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to lung cancer therapies
• Supportive measures for people with lung cancer and their families
• Quality of care and outcomes research
Lung cancer continues to be the number one cause of cancer deaths worldwide, accounting for an estimated 136,000 deaths annually in the United States alone. While scientific advances continue to reduce lung cancer incidence and deaths, the disease disproportionately affects various groups such as African Americans, Native Americans, low socioeconomic status populations and people from certain geographic locations. Despite progress to reduce the burden of tobacco, disparities in tobacco-related morbidity and mortality remain, and inequitable receipt of evidence-based lung cancer care continues to compound these disparities. We encourage applications on a wide variety of disparities-related topics including but not limited to the following:
• Gender disparities in lung cancer burden
• Causes and risk factors for lung cancer among never smokers
• Influence of social and biological risk factors on lung cancer outcomes, access to and use of care, and quality of care
• Genetic and gene-environment interactions
• Interactions and contributions of multiple factors (e.g. smoking, genetics, environment, societal factors) to disparities in lung cancer outcomes
• Contribution of healthcare access and quality to disparities in outcomes
• Disparities related to other factors such as geography, socioeconomic status, and age
Awards made through this funding mechanism will provide investigators up to $150,000 in funding over a period of two years.