Under its Pilot Study Awards program, the Rivkin Center is funding innovative research projects that seek to expand current knowledge about ovarian cancer, the non-profit has announced.
Awarded grants will provide up to $75,000 over two years for studies involving newer ideas that are not yet widely accepted, and for those whose results are expected to lay the groundwork for greater research initiatives. Projects showing exceptional progress in their first year may be awarded an additional $25,000 in year two.
The deadline for submission is Dec. 1.
Ovarian cancer is the second most common gynecological cancer in the U.S., but causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system. This is because only 20% of patients are diagnosed before the cancer has spread outside the ovaries, when the disease is much easier to treat.
About 90% of patients diagnosed at this stage end up living at least five years after their diagnosis, but the five-year survival rate drops to 30% when cancers are diagnosed after spreading to distant regions.
Advancing research is key to improve the early diagnosis of this condition and to close the survival gap for patients diagnosed in later stages.
The Rivkin Center is now funding small investigator-initiated projects that advance the knowledge of ovarian cancer, and possibly launch research initiatives focused on the disease.
While the center is prioritizing innovative and multidisciplinary projects, projects in all areas of ovarian cancer research are eligible for the awards, including those designed to analyze data from past clinical trials.
Those who wish to apply should submit a proposal application to the Rivkin Center, with information about the principal investigator and institution, scientific proposal, budget, biosketch, organizational assurances, and scientific and lay abstracts.
The complete award guidelines are available here.
After completing a project, awardees are encouraged to give oral presentations of their work at the Rivkin Center Ovarian Cancer Research Symposium. Those interested may compete for a travel stipend from the Rivkin Center to help defray some of the expenses of attending the symposium.
Since its founding in 1996, the center has distributed more than $14 million in support of ovarian cancer research projects, including pilot studies, early detection screening, and research symposia.
The Rivkin Center offers several other grant opportunities beyond the Pilot Study Awards, some of which are also currently open. The Scientific Scholars program, for example, provides up to $120,000 over two years to attract new investigators into the field of ovarian cancer.
Other programs provide bridge funding to help researchers generate more data to support their resubmissions for federal grants or challenge grants to help scientists tackle big-question problems in ovarian cancer research.