Faculty Award Programs
Award deadline has passed. Please check in the spring.
The Johnson Cancer Research Center advances cancer research at K-State and helps train the next generation of researchers. It supports faculty, undergraduate and graduate students through competitive award programs. All JCRC faculty members are eligible to apply for awards and sponsor student applications.
Innovative Research Awards
Preliminary data can be crucial to the success of a research proposal. The center will provide “seed money” for projects intended to support future grant applications. All cancer research center full faculty are eligible to apply. Awards will be made on a competitive basis. The requested amount is usually much higher than available funds, constraining the size of the awards we can make (up to $25,000). Requests for sustained support of full-time research assistants or post-docs will not be successful. Funds will not be provided for major equipment or faculty summer salaries, travel, or graduate student salaries. (Graduate student/postdoctoral travel to meetings and graduate student summer stipends can be funded via other award categories.) All applications will require a progress report to become eligible for future awards.
The biannual application deadlines are October 1 and March 1.
Alex Tung Memorial Innovative Research Award for Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma Studies
This Innovative Research Award supports research on rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive and highly malignant form of cancer that develops from skeletal muscle cells that have failed to fully differentiate. It occurs mostly in children under age 18. The application process and guidelines will be the same as with the general IRA (see above) except that the applicant must document how the project specifically targets rhabdomyosarcoma or other related sarcomas. Funding will be up to $25,000. This award is funded through the generosity of Sarah Young, whose son Alex Tung died of rhabdomyosarcoma when he was 31 years old. Read more about Alex and Sarah here.
The annual application deadline is October 1.
Linders Family Cancer Research Expansion Award
While start-up funds may provide junior investigators support for personnel and the establishment of the main project of the laboratory, limited funds are available for cancer research supplies. The Cancer Research Expansion Award provides associate JCRC members only with up to $20,000 to expand their cancer research project. This award is aimed at increasing the number of active cancer projects at K-State and the likelihood of finding a cure for cancer. We expect to give 1-2 awards per year. If the project has progressed but not resulted in a cancer-related publication or grant application, a second-year award may be possible. Funds may not pay for personnel, major equipment or travel.
The annual application deadline is March 15.
Core Facility Equipment Awards
New technology and the acquisition of necessary equipment can be crucial to modern research, yet funds for this purpose are often lacking. The center will fund equipment purchases for equipment and service cores that serve K-State and JCRC faculty members. Our intent is to help fund high-impact equipment that can be used by large numbers of JCRC faculty. This mechanism is only available to recognized core facilities at K-State and not open to individual labs even with the understanding that equipment will be shared. This award, normally available in spring, will not be available Spring 2021.
Core Facility Equipment Award Online Application
NOTE TO APPLICANTS: You cannot save or re-enter the application, so have all your information ready before you start.
Travel Fellowship Program
Recognizing that scientific techniques are important drivers in the progress of life science research, the center will provide funds, totaling $2,000 for each biannual competition, to cancer research faculty and their trainees to pursue travel for the following purposes:
- Support visits to other institutions to learn new scientific techniques to subsequently apply these techniques in K-State laboratories.
- Support new or ongoing collaborative studies that cannot be conducted without visiting colleagues at other institutions; and
- Introduce newly learned techniques and/or research advances to other investigators at K-State.
The biannual application deadlines are October 1 and March 1.
Cancer Research Collaboration of Excellence Awards
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to establish and fund our Cancer Research Collaboration of Excellence (CRCE) program (formerly Center of Excellence, or COE). CRCE awards are intended to support integrated, multi-project research programs that have a well-defined, central research focus on cancer. Our vision of a CRCE is a program consisting of interrelated cancer research projects, each capable of standing on its own scientific merit but complementing the other projects in the CRCE. A Letter of Intent must be submitted before the application.
A Letter of Intent is due March 1, 2021, by 11:59 p.m.
The CRCE Application is due March 15, 2021, by 11:59 p.m.
Cancer Research Collaboration of Excellence Planning Grants
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to establish and fund the Cancer Research Collaboration of Excellence (CRCE) program. CRCEs are intended to support integrated, multi-project research programs with a well-defined, central research focus on cancer. Our vision of a CRCE is a program consisting of interrelated cancer research projects, each capable of standing on its own scientific merit but complementing the other projects in the CRCE. The overall goal of the program is for each CRCE to develop into a PO1-type extramural grant with a focus on basic cancer research with suggested areas of fundamental biology of specific cancer types, cancer diagnosis, pre-clinical therapy development and a vision for application of these results.
JCRC faculty members are invited to submit applications for six-month planning grants. These one-time, six-month awards will support the development of consortia that can collaborate and synergize on a cancer research focus area. This award is not currently available.