July 8, 2009 - The Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a leading breast cancer organization, is announcing millions of dollars in long-term grant funding for research on whether individuals can prevent development of their own cancers.
The foundation is asking the scientific community for proposals for long-term research grants - some as large as $5 million - to study everything from the role of natural products to diets to breast cancer vaccines. The foundation aims to work on strategies to prevent breast cancer entirely, or at least pinpoint the environmental and lifestyle issues that may contribute to breast cancer.
The research will be funded through Komen's Promise Grants: multiyear, multimillion dollar projects geared to answer the toughest questions in breast cancer science today.
Introduced in 2008, Promise Grants require collaboration across a wide range of disciplines - scientists, medical professionals, caregivers, public health specialists and advocates - who normally may not work together. These teams conduct research with the highest potential to deliver treatments for breast cancer more quickly and for this new Promise Grant to find ways to prevent breast cancer.
Komen's $450 million in research funding since its founding in 1982 has touched every major development in breast cancer treatments during the past 27 years. In the last three years alone, Komen has invested more than $230 million in research projects in the U.S. and internationally.
For more information: www5.komen.org/researchgrants/grantprograms.html