Every five years, research strategic plans are submitted to and evaluated by the Children’s Cancer Research Fund Executive Committee. The goal of the Research Strategic Plan is to direct funding to the areas that will make the greatest impact in the world of childhood cancer.
Tightly Focused Research in Promising Areas
Stem Cell Biology Program
Conducts research into the use of stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood and adult tissues and develops novel approaches for treating children with tissue injury resulting from cancer or cancer treatment. The program recently discovered new ways to use umbilical cord blood that lowered relapse rates and nearly tripled survival rates. In addition, the program has been working with new stem cell transplant options designed to make transplants readily available for nearly all patients.
Immune-based Therapy Program
Develops and tests innovative treatments for children with cancer and patients undergoing blood and marrow transplantation that enhance the ability of the patient’s or donor’s immune cells to attack cancer cells or minimize side effects.
Hematology/Genetic Disease Program
Investigates new strategies using new cellular therapies generated in the Stem Cell Biology and Immune-Based Therapy Programs to treat patients with genetic or metabolic diseases (e.g., Fanconi Anemia, Krabbe Disease, Adrenoleukodystrophy). Researchers are working to develop a new transplantation protocol for individuals with high-risk, inherited genetic or metabolic disorders.
Phase I Experimental Therapeutics Program
Develops and tests new treatment strategies for children with cancer resistant to conventional therapy, or who are at high risk for treatment failure.
Childhood Cancer Survivorship
Identifies and characterizes factors associated with adverse long-term health and psychosocial outcomes among survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer in order to develop and test intervention strategies to improve the overall long-term survival and quality of life of successfully treated patients.
Epidemiologic Research Program
Studies the potential genetic and/or environmental influences that determine a child’s risk of developing cancer. The program director is currently leading the effort to establish a Childhood Cancer Research Network, a North American pediatric cancer registry that will facilitate nontherapeutic research.
Molecular Cancer Biology Program
Investigates molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis of childhood cancers that will increase understanding of the underlying biology of the disease and help in developing better treatments.