Kure It!, a nonprofit organization founded by self-storage industry veteran Barry Hoeven and dedicated to funding cancer research, and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) have awarded two $250,000 grants to support innovative, translational kidney-cancer research. The recipients are Dr. William Y. Kim, an assistant professor of medicine and genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and a practicing oncologist, and Dr. James W. Mier, an associate professor in hematology and oncology in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Kim is a faculty member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Mier works at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Kim and Mier will each receive $250,000 during the two-year grant term. They will also be recognized at the grants reception and dinner during the AACR annual meeting, April 6-10, in Washington, D.C.
The grants are designed to support research that improves the survival and life quality of patients with kidney cancer and leads to individualized therapeutic options for the treatment or development of promising new kidney-cancer therapies.
Kure It partnered with the AACR in early 2012 with the goal of becoming a leading supporter of kidney-cancer research. Hoeven recognized the AACR for assembling a team of specialists to review the submitted proposals, as well as their role in making researchers aware of the funds available.
The AACR partnership brought us a much larger pool of projects from which to choose, and we were pleased to be able to fund a second award," Hoeven said. "We are grateful to our supporters for providing consistent funding so that we can support innovative research."
The expert scientific review committee, assembled by the AACR, received 44 high-caliber applications from independent investigators who proposed to develop and study new ideas and approaches that will have a direct application and relevance to patients with kidney cancer. The AACR and Kure It are committed to collaboratively sustain the grant to award funding to the most promising kidney-cancer research project.
Kure It aims to raise money for cancer-research specialists who conduct innovative projects to better treat and ultimately cure kidney cancer and other underfunded malignancies. The organization has raised more than $1.5 million since being founded in 2007. It supports research at major institutions including Samuel Oschin Cancer Center at Cedars Sinai, Beckman Research Institute at the City of Hope, and Knight Research Institute at Oregon Health & Science University. Kure It awarded a total of $600,000 in grant funds in 2012.
Founded in 1907, AACR is the worlds first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer.
