Funding Opportunities

The Children’s Tumor Foundation is dedicated to funding research that will prevent, reverse, or manage the complications of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), and all types of schwannomatosis (SWN), including NF2-related schwannomatosis (NF2-SWN), formerly called neurofibromatosis type 2.

Grant Schedule

Requests for Applications (RFAs)

The Children’s Tumor Foundation has historically acted as a ‘seed funder’ to provide funding, especially to early-career NF researchers and early-stage NF research, which require additional time and support before becoming eligible for larger governmental or industrial funding.

CTF established the Discovery Fund as a mechanism to support researchers and clinicians engaged in novel and fundamental NF investigations. The Discovery Fund encompasses the following award programs: Young Investigator Award (YIA), Drug Discovery Initiative (DDI), and Clinical Research Awards (CRA). Additional award mechanisms and funding opportunities include our Contract Awards and funding for our upcoming Preclinical Hub.

Patent Policy No Cost Extension Policy No Cost Extension Form

Grants Schedule

Young Investigator Award (YIA)
- Letter of Intent (LOI) Open November 1 – December 2, 2024
- Award Start Date – July 1, 2025
Drug Discovery Initiative (DDI)
- Application Open January 6 – February 3, 2025
- Award Start Date – July 1, 2025
Clinical Research Award (CRA)
- Letter of Intent (LOI) Open January 13 – February 10, 2025
- Award Start Date – September 1, 2025
Preclinical Hub
- Open March 18 – May 20, 2024; Application closed

Search CTF-Funded Research Projects

Search the Children’s Tumor Foundation’s Award Database to discover investigators and projects driving key advances in NF research.

View Current and Past CTF Funding

Young Investigator Award (YIA)

The Young Investigator Award is CTF’s longest running award program, and provides two-year salary support to early career NF researchers, such as senior doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers, to help them get established as independent NF investigators. Since its inception, several YIAs have made groundbreaking research findings and notable publications through this program, and many have advanced to become leaders in the NF research and clinical communities. The main function of the YIA program has been to serve as a ‘seeding mechanism’ for researchers to secure larger grants, such as from the NIH and CDMRP NFRP.

Submit Letter of Intent (LOI)

The YIA Letter of Intent form can be accessed by logging into Proposal Central as an Applicant, clicking on Grants Opportunities, and either filtering by Children’s Tumor Foundation or typing in the foundation name in the Search box.

Access Proposal Central

For questions, contact Proposal Central at ctfgrants@altum.com.

Eligibility

Applicant must be a graduate student pursuing an MD, Ph.D., or equivalent degree or a postdoctoral fellow with no more than 7 years past completion of their first doctoral degree.
Applicant must be affiliated with the laboratory of a senior researcher who is the applicant’s research sponsor.
Applicant must commit to the minimum effort requirements as outlined in the YIA Guidelines.
Only one YIA application per laboratory per year will be funded.
An individual may not receive more than one postdoctoral YIA in his/her career.
There are no citizenship requirements.

Funding Amount and Duration

The program provides funding for TWO YEARS. Funding requests have a maximum of $200,000 total for the entire two-year period. Please note this funding amount is INCLUSIVE of up to 10% of indirect costs.

Guidelines

VIEW APPLICATION GUIDELINES

Letter of Intent (LOI) opens November 1, 2024
LOI deadline – December 2, 2024
Award start date – July 1, 2025

Program Chairs

Andrea “Andi” McClatchey is the Poitras Family Professor of Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and was named the 2011 Scott and Patricia Eston MGH ECOR Research Scholar in 2011. Dr. McClatchey received her PhD in Genetics from Harvard Medical School and completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Tyler Jacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the faculty at MGH and Harvard Medical School. In addition to running a research program, Dr. McClatchey is co-leader of the Landry Cancer Biology Consortium for graduate students at Harvard Medical School and devotes considerable time to the training and mentoring of graduate students. Dr. McClatchey’s research is dedicated to understanding the molecular basis of the familial tumor syndrome neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) and using that insight to develop and test new treatments for NF2. Her work has uncovered key aspects of how the NF2 protein Merlin functions and revealed fundamental rules by which all cells organize their outer membrane so as to appropriately interface with their environment. She actively engages in translating these fundamental scientific discoveries toward new therapeutic strategies for NF2 patients.

Helen Morrison, PhD, Professor Neurobiology of Aging
Helen Morrison studied in the United Kingdom and received her PhD degree in Germany. After research stays in the USA and Germany, she moved to Jena to pursue her scientific career as a group leader at the Leibniz Research on Aging (FLI) where she was tenured in 2015 and was appointed Professor Neurobiology of Aging at Faculty of Biological Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena in 2020. Dr. Morrison is on national and international review panels, is an elected German Research Foundation study section member, and has initiated mentoring measures targeting young scientists and clinicians. She has also been a spokesperson for the Leibniz-funded postdoc network ‘RegenerAging’ since 2015 and a spokesperson for the interdisciplinary Leibniz Research Alliance ‘Healthy Aging’ since 2017. Dr. Morrison’s research interest lies in the nature of cell communication and the mis-wiring of signaling pathways in disease and ageing. Her research group is specifically interested in delineating the molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration and in disease mechanisms for disorders of myelinating cells. These disease areas represent a great medical need and Dr. Morrison collaborates nationally and internationally with the aim to perform translational work in each area. Dr. Morrison has worked and collaborated on NF2 research for more than 15 years, focusing her efforts on dissecting merlin’s mechanism of action.

Eduard “Edu” Serra is a researcher at the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona (Barcelona), Spain. He received his PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona and performed a postdoctoral training at the Molecular Sciences Institute, Berkeley, California. Dr. Serra started working on Neurofibromatosis type 1 in 1995 in the lab of Dr. Conxi Lázaro, and has continued in the NF field since then, except the postdoctoral period at Berkeley. At IGTP, he combined the running of a Neurofibromatosis research lab with the genetic diagnostics of NF patients (2009-2019). Recently he focused his efforts only in research, especially in the NF1-associated peripheral nervous system tumors. His group is interested in the origin, progression and therapeutic response of neurofibromas and MPNSTs; in the molecular bases of NF pathogenesis and on finding new therapeutic approximations. His group uses genomics and integrative biology analyses and generates and uses cell-based model systems, like induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and 3D systems. Dr. Serra participates in the Neurofibromatoses Clinical Reference Center in Spain and is a close collaborator of different local and international NF Patient Associations.

Current and Past Awardees

View and download the latest class of awardees.

2024 Awardees

View and download a listing of past awardees.

2023-2010 Awardees

Since inception, YIAs have achieved groundbreaking research and publications, with many advancing as leaders in NF research and clinical care. Meet some of our awardees.

YIA Profiles

Drug Discovery Initiative (DDI)

The goal of the Drug Discovery Initiative (DDI) program is to stimulate NF drug discovery by funding researchers proposing to investigate novel or repurposing therapies for NF or to validate new NF targets. Proposals are expected to be short and concentrated on obtaining key preliminary data needed to quickly advance to the next step of drug discovery.

Specifically, applications must fall into one the following two categories:

Support early-stage testing of therapeutic compounds for the treatment of NF. Shelved compounds (compounds having successfully undergone clinical testing but not being actively developed further despite this) will be prioritized. For compounds against a specific target (where multiple compounds exist), a strong rationale, also based on safety data, must be provided upon submission.
Support the validation of a novel NF target. Targets may have been described as potentially relevant in NF or may be de novo. To that end, we encourage the mining of existing publicly available datasets. Target validation experiments should not be limited to the testing of compounds of limited or unknown specificity and should include target engagement experiments using direct biochemical methods or genetic interactions.