Grants Search Results

Children, adolescents, and young adults (AYA) diagnosed with sarcoma, often face long-term health challenges commonly seen among older adults who have never been diagnosed with cancer. This may be due to a phenomenon known as accelerated aging, where cancer and its treatment cause patients to age faster than they should. Dr. Robinson and colleagues will explore factors that may affect accelerated aging and the impact of accelerated aging on an individual's physical function and quality of life. Dr. Robinson and team will assess age acceleration among sarcoma patients and survivors, ages 12-25, and study its association with their demographics, lifestyle, disease, and treatment. In doing so, Dr. Robinson and colleagues will guide the development of interventions to improve the long-term health and well-being of pediatric and AYA sarcoma survivors.

This grant is named for Madison Richards Mighty Research Marauders, a St. Baldrick's Hero Fund. It was established to celebrate Madison's extraordinary courage and resilience. Madison survived a harrowing ordeal with Ewing sarcoma in her chest cavity. Her extended treatment required more than 140 nights in the hospital and included a month-long coma while she fought West Nile Virus. Through every challenge, she faced each days with remarkable grace and poise. When surgery and treatment were complete, she returned to high school, completed an 18-month mission for her church, and graduated from college. Madison is a true example of making it through the storm and living life to the fullest on the other side.

The most common source of pain when treating children is needles. Avoiding painful procedures is a cause of stopping treatment for children with cancer in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Dr. McNeil and colleagues will utilize an evidence-based care bundle to reduce needle pain based off of past results used in hospitals with LMICs with high patient and parent satisfaction which reduced pain by a significant amount. Keeping in mind the large differences in resources and cultures between the different hospitals, Dr. McNeil and colleagues will be able to understand the key features of using the care bundle in different hospitals. Dr. McNeil's team will identify different adaptations each hospital uses and study the ability of a hospital to continue to implement care.

One in three children with newly diagnosed cancer has unmet resource needs such as food, housing, transportation, or utilities. These social needs increase during cancer care and are linked to worse outcomes for children and their parents. Government benefits such as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps) improve child and maternal health outcomes. Dr. Umaretiya will conduct a pilot study using ASSIST, (a benefits navigator intervention to help families enroll and stay on government benefits such as SNAP) among 40 families of children with newly diagnosed cancer and test whether it is feasible and acceptable to families, allowing to identify barriers and facilitators to use ASSIST intervention.

Dr. Lerman is studying the connection between how aggressive childhood brain tumors called diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) look on MRI scans and the DNA of the tumors themselves. Tumors that look different from each other on MRI scans and have different changes in their DNA grow in different ways. What is not known is how the appearance of the tumor on the MRI scan is related to the changes in the tumor's DNA. By studying this connection, Dr. Lerman hopes to predict how a tumor might grow based only on an MRI scan, which would help patients and families who either cannot or choose not to have a surgical procedure called a biopsy to test the tumor's DNA. Right now, there is no treatment that cures DMG and all patients are treated the same way: with radiation. Dr. Lerman plans to identify groups of tumors that behave similarly, which will help future clinical trials test the right medicine for the right patient.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) commonly occurs during therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Small studies in pediatric ALL have suggested that AKI increases the chance of dying or the treatment not working. AKI may also lead to permanent chronic kidney disease (CKD) in survivors. This has never been investigated in a large population of children with ALL. This project will use data from the multicenter Leukemia Electronic Abstraction of Records Network to investigate how different types of AKI impact survival from ALL and the development of CKD. Dr. Bravo and colleagues will enroll children who have completed ALL therapy into a study to assess markers of kidney function over the subsequent year. This study will be critical to inform recommendations for how doctors screen for kidney-related problems in childhood ALL survivors. This is only a first step; once completed, Dr. Bravo and team can then expand these efforts to understand kidney damage from treatments for other types of cancer too.

This grant is named for To-morrow's Research Fund, a Hero Fund created to honor Becky Morrow who is a childhood cancer survivor. Becky was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when she was 12 and endured grueling treatments and its side effects. Today she is cancer free, a wife and a mom but suffers late effects. This fund supports survivorship research for safer treatments that help kids not only survive but thrive.

It is known that children with cancer have higher rates of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death than children without cancer and COVID-19. Children with cancer and COVID-19 also frequently have changes in their chemotherapy. Yet, critical data is lacking regarding COVID-19 in children with cancer and guidelines about how to manage these vulnerable children. Dr. Johnston and collegaues will leverage the national registry of children with cancer and COVID with data on >2,400 children from >100 institutions to examine (1) how the clinical course of children with cancer and COVID-19 compares to earlier in the pandemic, (2) how the clinical course of COVID-19 in children with cancer is impacted by vaccination and antiviral therapy, and (3) physician and healthcare systems factors that influence COVID-19 management. Dr. Johnston will use that information, literature review, and expert discussion to inform an expert panel tasked with developing guidelines for management of COVID-19 in children with cancer.

Children everywhere in the world get cancer but their chances of surviving differ based on where they live. Disparities in childhood cancer diagnoses and survival have been described by sex and age, but there are gaps in this literature from countries with limited resources. The first goal of Dr. Force's project is to analyze how childhood cancer diagnoses and survival differ by sex, age, and world region, using data from the most comprehensive international collection of hospital cancer registries, and to assess potential underlying drivers of these disparities, which would be beneficial in identifying interventions to improve equity in childhood cancer outcomes. The second goal of Dr. Force's project is to compare childhood cancer data from hospitals and population-based cancer registries, to determine whether hospital data could be used to supplement information on childhood cancer burden where data is currently lacking in global models, better illuminating the disparities that exist globally.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Aziz-Bose was awarded a new grant in 2026 to fund an additional year of this Fellow grant.

Even after being cured, childhood cancer survivors face challenges to living a healthy life, and one major challenge is heart disease. Heart health is closely linked to healthy eating, but many survivors cannot eat as healthily as they want because they don't have access to, or can't afford, healthy foods ("food insecurity"). Dr. Aziz-Bose will enroll survivors in this study to ask what they are eating, and understand whether they experience food insecurity and other conditions that put heart health at risk. Survivors will also be interviewed for their ideas about how to support healthy eating, including the best ways to directly give families healthy foods, an approach called "food is medicine." Using this information, Dr. Aziz-Bose will fine-tune a "food is medicine" intervention that she developed, and test it on a larger scale to see its impact on food insecurity and heart health. The goal being to understand and tackle barriers to healthy eating so all survivors can have the best health possible.

This grant is funded by Allied World, a global provider of insurance and reinsurance solutions.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a blood cancer that affects children. AML treatment involves intensive chemotherapy that requires over 140 days in the hospital. This places immense financial burden on families including medical bills, transportation costs, childcare, and missed days from work. This burden and resulting distress are called financial toxicity. Dr. Zheng's research is focused on measuring financial toxicity and trying to figure out what can be done about it. One important idea to consider is that many parents quit their jobs or reduce their hours to care for their child. Dr. Zheng plans to use surveys and interviews to gain a clearer picture of how work disruptions develop over AML treatment and lead to financial toxicity. Dr. Zheng wants to identify what work arrangements and policies could offer the most support. Ultimately, it could lead to advocating for more flexible work schedules, remote work options, or other accommodations that could make a real difference for these families.

This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

The Loma Linda University Children's Hospital (LLUCH) services a four-county region (San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo and Mono Counties). For the 1.3 million children living in this region, 25% come from families that live in poverty and are uninsured. This population represents 80% of the children treated here. This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure. The participation of this patient population in clinical trials is critical for the identification of therapies that can alleviate this health disparity and effectively treat all children.

This grant supports a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

This grant supports a pediatric-focused Clinical Research Coordinator to ensure that the children of central New York have a variety of clinical trials so that they do not have to leave the region to attain this level of care, often their best hope for a cure.

Children receiving bone marrow transplant can have serious complication such as bloodstream infections and graft versus host disease and some children die of these complications. Alteration of the bacteria in the gut by treatments including antibiotics is an important cause of these complications. In a previous study Dr. Davies and colleagues have tested the use of human milk to help keep gut bacteria healthy in very young children and found that this treatment worked. They are now studying a purified sugar from human milk, 2-FL that can be given easily as a medicine. Dr. Davies will also test a novel rapid urine test and a blood test to assess health of the gut bacteria during the study. Current tests require a stool sample and can take a long time. This trial will generate the data needed to perform a large-scale multi-center randomized clinical trial that will best prove how well this treatment works.

This grant is generously supported by the Rays of Hope Hero Fund which honors the memory of Rayanna Marrero. She was a happy 3-year-old when she was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). She successfully battled ALL, but a treatment induced secondary cancer claimed her life at age eight. Rayanna had an amazing attitude and loved life. She, like so many kids facing childhood cancer, did not allow it to define who she was. This Hero Fund aspires to give hope to kids fighting cancer through research.

In Africa, the majority of children who get cancer die from their disease. This happens in many cases because the patients do not get a correct diagnosis. Without a precise and correct diagnosis, these children cannot benefit from the newest curative treatments. To help prevent this from happening, Dr. Lutwama will develop and test a strategy to diagnose pediatric cancer correctly in a manner that is affordable, reliable, and within a shorter time frame in resource-limited settings.

In Africa, the majority of children who get cancer die from their disease. This happens in many cases because the patients do not get a correct diagnosis. Without a precise and correct diagnosis, these children cannot benefit from the newest curative treatments. To help prevent this from happening, Dr. Lutwama will develop and test a strategy to diagnose pediatric cancer correctly in a manner that is affordable, reliable, and within a shorter time frame in resource-limited settings.

Bone marrow transplantation is a highly effective treatment for relapsed and difficult to treat forms of pediatric leukemia, but unfortunately has a high risk for dangerous side effects. Viral infections are a major problem in the weeks and months after bone marrow transplant while children's immune systems are still immature. These infections can be debilitating and even deadly while also being very difficult to treat since available antiviral medications frequently do not work. Over the last few years, researchers have had great success in combating these viral infections by taking T-cells (a type of infection fighting cell that is part of the immune system) donated by children's personalized stem cell donors and engineering them to attack and kill certain viruses. Additionally, the rates of side effects using this therapy have been incredibly low. Dr. Rubinstein now intends to offer this therapy as a preventative measure, with the hope that this strategy will decrease the number of patients suffering from dangerous viral infections after bone marrow transplant. This clinical trial has the potential to decrease the number of pediatric cancer survivors who die from infection while also shortening hospitalizations and decreasing the need for other anti-viral medications.

This grant is generously supported by the Rally for Ryan Fund, a St. Baldrick's Hero Fund. Ryan was diagnosed with ALL when he was 7 years old and began treatment immediately. Initially labeled “high risk” due to a poor response, he completed 3½ years of a difficult treatment protocol before relapsing 11 months later. After his third relapse and an unsuccessful immunotherapy trial, Ryan had a bone marrow transplant in December 2020. He is currently fighting graft vs. host disease but is doing well and is optimistic for a good response. The Campanaros created this Hero Fund to celebrate Ryan’s courageous spirit and knowing firsthand the importance of research, to raise funds to find better treatments for kids with cancer.

A growing number of childhood cancer survivors have been treated with high-dose chemotherapy. This high-dose chemotherapy places the survivors at risk for cognitive problems, affecting their thinking skills, processing speed, attention, and memory. Downstream effects of cognitive impairment include difficulties with independent living as they transition into adulthood. Currently, there is limited information as to whether cognitive remediation interventions can improve cognitive functioning in childhood cancer survivors. Cognitive remediation is important for teaching effective decision-making and reasoning skills to enhance self-management and self-advocacy, which in turn could result in improvement in other areas, such as employment and independent living. In particular, given the barriers to accessing medical care (e.g., distance to medical center, reliable transportation), Dr. Murdaugh will use telemedicine to deliver this intervention. This study aims to assess the efficacy of a 4-week intervention delivered via telemedicine that teaches strategies to improve decision-making and reasoning skills in cancer survivors between the ages of 10 and 18 years old.

Pain is one of the most common and distressing symptoms that children with cancer face. Pain can persist between clinic visits but may not be reported unless the child is specifically asked. Dr. Linder's team co-designed a game-based symptom reporting app, Color Me Healthy, with elementary school-age children with cancer. In the initial test of the app among children receiving chemotherapy, more than half of children's symptom reports included a report of pain. Parents reported that the app helped them better understand their child's symptoms. Children and parents also gave important feedback to improve the app. During the first phase of the study, Dr. Linder will use feedback from children and parents to make important changes to the app to enhance how children report pain using the app and how children's data can be understood by parents and clinicians. In the second phase of the study, she will ask children to use the newly enhanced pain assessment feature and ask how parents and clinicians used children's data to help relieve their pain. Completing this study will allow Dr. Linder to use the app in a larger study to improve pain management and quality of life among children receiving cancer treatment.

Brain tumors are one of the most common and deadliest forms of pediatric cancers. Those who do survive may experience late effects including cognitive, emotional, and social difficulties. Additionally, Columbia University Medical Center in New York, New York has some of the highest rates of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Thus, the children and their families facing diagnoses of pediatric brain tumors, and the health care providers treating them, were faced with incredibly difficult decisions, at a time when the entire medical system was in a state of upheaval, and questions were being raised as to who should be treated and saved. In medicine shared decision making involving parents, children (when possible) and health care providers is recommended in situations where there is not a clear superior treatment, which may be the case for many pediatric brain tumors. This study aims to understand the factors parents, healthcare providers, and the children themselves considered when making health care decisions. This includes how they balanced potential short-term and long-term challenges with quality of life and longevity of life, what information informed their decisions, and how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the decisions they were making. This information will provide important insight into how decisions are made, particularly in times of heightened crisis. This will make us better able to help families, patients, and children.