CureSearch for Children's Cancer

For more than 30 years, CureSearch has been a driving force in pediatric cancer research. Recognizing a broken system, growing obstacles, and unmet needs in drug development, we’ve launched an innovative and unique strategy to address the urgent, critical need for new childhood cancer treatments.

We know that smarter research funding is just one part of the solution, and that long-term solutions will require a seismic shift to the existing pediatric drug development process and landscape. This change will require strategic collaboration among all players in the pediatric cancer ecosystem, including science, academia, regulatory, non-profits, patients and industry leaders.

Together, we’re changing the drug development landscape from within and accelerating the development of new treatments for the 47 children diagnosed with cancer each day.

With the expert leadership of our Scientific and Industry Advisory Councils, we identify and fund only the strongest research projects that address areas of unmet need and are most likely to quickly reach patients in the clinic or marketplace.

Preclinical research funding via our Acceleration Initiative award supports novel projects that address areas of unmet need and are most likely to advance quickly to the clinic in 3-5 years. Through our Catapult Awards, we fund game-changing clinical trials – projects with established commercial potential that will impact patients in the clinic at an accelerated pace and have the potential to provide a new, better standard of care for children everywhere. We are building a pipeline of the next leaders in pediatric cancer drug development through our Young Investigator Awards. The Young Investigator program combats the loss of promising scientists from the field by providing financial support to investigators early in their research careers and delivering career development and mentoring opportunities.

We create connections and community between stakeholders by providing platforms for engagement to allow critical conversations to occur. CureSearch stakeholder meetings such as the annual CureSearch Summit and the Pediatric Early Development Symposium directly influence and advance pediatric cancer research and drug development.

At CureSearch, we’re uniquely positioned to drive critical stakeholder collaborations to accelerate the pace of pediatric drug development. During our 30+ years in childhood cancer research, we have developed relationships with the best cancer institutions in the country, and the ability to attract preeminent scientists and leaders to our Scientific Advisory Council, Scientific Review Committee, and Industry Advisory Council. This allows us to develop the most forward-thinking research agenda, attract the best proposals for research projects, and to have research proposals reviewed and ranked by the brightest minds in childhood cancer research.

Since its inception in 2014, the Acceleration Initiative grants have resulted in impactful discoveries and generation of essential tools for the research community. Of note, Acceleration Initiative projects are five-times more likely to move into clinical trials than other preclinical cancer research and they do so 2.5 years faster. In addition, we have seen the following impact metrics from Acceleration Initiative projects:

• 10 potential new therapies are ready for clinical trials
• 98 novel cell models developed
• 154 novel animal models created
• 342 patient biopsies studied
• Over 1.2 million compounds screened
• 2 clinical trials, one for medulloblastoma and one for Ewing sarcoma, resulting from Acceleration Initiative preclincial projects
• 29 new drug targets identified

Since 2015, Young Investigators have accomplished the following:

• 3 clinical trials for adolescent/young adult transition
• 247 patients enrolled in prospective cohort studies
• 114 patient biopsies studied
• 40 novel cell models developed
• 18 novel animal models created
• 296 drug targets identified
• Over 100,000 compounds screened
• 5 RNAi screens performed
• 5 CRISPR-Cas9 screens conducted
• 3 genomic screens analyzing 20,000 genes

The first investigator was awarded through the Catapult Program in 2018. In that time, the following important outcomes have been achieved:

• 3 clinical trials initiated
• 7 clinical trial sites open for enrollment
• 12 patients treated in clinical trials
• 1 novel CAR T-cell delivery mechanism employed