The goal of the Young Investigator Awards is to enable promising young investigators to initiate successful scientific careers.

The Young Investigator Awards are research grants to be awarded to men and women during the first two years of their initial faculty appointment (instructor, assistant professor) who have not yet received significant external support at the time of submission. These awards are designed to nurture young scientists in the pursuit of independent hypotheses, and to enable them to develop the preliminary data necessary to successfully compete for major research grants.

The award is $75,000, to be awarded in three installments.

The Cancer Research Foundation publishes guidelines for the submission of applications each year in the Spring.  Applications are due in time to be reviewed at the fall Cancer Research Foundation Board Meeting. The 2011 Young Investigator Award guidlines have not yet been published. Upon receipt by the Foundation trustees,  Dr. Richard L. Schilsky, the Cancer Research Foundation's  medical consultant details the science and merits of each proposal. Foundation Directors make all funding decisions.

2012 Young Investigator Award Requirements

Young Investigator Award Recipients

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"The most significant science is a process of exploration and is definitely not for the faint-hearted. You have a few clues and a hunch that 'there is something out there', but most of the time you are definitely 'flying by the seat of your pants'. After all, there are no familiar landmarks in truly unexplored territory. Who will finance such a risky business? Certainly not the government and other large organizations. Such groups support the development of new areas only after an initial discovery has made it obvious to everyone that there is something to be gained. In my experience, the Cancer Research Foundation had been one of the only groups that has been willing to bear the risk of the all-important fist step in a new project. Specifically, the CRF was instrumental in nurturing our early efforts to create multimodality 3D images of brain structure and function. These methods are now in use in many brain research laboratories around the world."