Institutional Research Grant

For the past 27 years, the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center (RHLCCC; LCC) of Northwestern University (NU) has used funds from an ACS-IRG to support pilot studies by junior investigators seeking to embark on independent careers in cancer research. During the current three-year term, which expires on Dec. 31, 2021, four pilot studies per year have been funded, with at least one of these being a study in an area of “special interest” to the ACS. This application seeks a renewal of this IRG, which has provided crucial seed funding for many beginning faculty members, allowing them to generate initial publications and data on which to base extramural grant applications. The LCC, established at Northwestern University in 1974, encompasses laboratories, resources and personnel at multiple sites on two campuses: 1) the downtown Chicago campus, which houses the Feinberg School of Medicine (FSM), three of its affiliated hospitals -Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Lurie Children’s Hospital, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago- as well as the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, and 2) the Evanston campus, which houses undergraduate and graduate basic science and engineering programs. Dr. Leonidas Platanias, the PI of the IRG since 2010, was named Lurie Cancer Center Director in the fall of October 2014, replacing Dr. Steve Rosen. The RHLCCC, one of two NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Illinois and one of thirty members of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, is currently supported by a five-year Cancer Center Support Grant, the application for which received an exceptional score of 12 in 2018.