RESEARCH GRANTS

Young Investigator Grants (YIG)

Two Years | $125,000

Breast Cancer Alliance invites clinical doctors and research scientists who are in the early stages of their careers, including post docs, whose current proposal is focused on breast cancer, to apply for a Young Investigator Grant.  

This award helps advance the careers of young researchers who do not yet have their own major grant support, but who design and conduct their own independent research projects. 

The term of the Young Investigator Grant is two years, beginning on April 1, 2026. The grant provides salary support and project costs for a total of $125,000, distributed over a two-year period. 

Indirect costs, which are included in the award, must be limited to 8% of total direct costs. 

Researchers should coordinate with their institution’s grants management or sponsored programs offices, as BCA will accept a maximum of ONLY TWO LOIs PER INSTITUTION (YIG or XP.)

Applicants will be informed by mid-May 2025 whether they have been invited to proceed with a formal application.

**You may only submit an LOI for each proposal for either an Exceptional Project Grant or a Young Investigator Grant. It is your choice as to which application best suits your experience. 

For general questions concerning anything NOT covered in our FAQ's below, email: researchgrants@breastcanceralliance.org

    • Must not have held a tenure track faculty or tenure track research position for more than four years following completion of their training, as of March 1, 2026

    • Must not have been or are not a principal investigator on an NIH R01 or equivalent national/international non-mentored award as of March 1, 2026

    • Must dedicate at least 50% of their work effort to research

    • Must be at an institution located in the contiguous United States.  

    • Must not be a for-profit institution.  

  • Prior to submission of a formal grant proposal, BCA requires a Letter of Intent (LOI) and a separate CV that must be completed using the online form here and must be submitted by midnight on March 31, 2025.

    The LOI must contain:

    • The applicant’s name, job title and institution

    • The applicant’s full contact information

    • The complete project title and hypothesis

    • Outline the research aim(s) and methods

    • Include a brief discussion of the project’s potential impact

    • The CV should be in the current NIH biosketch format. 

    References for the LOI are not required

    Applicants will be informed by mid-May 2025 whether they have been invited to proceed with a formal application.

  • Full applications for the Young Investigator Grant are due on or before midnight EDT on July 19, 2025, are by invitation only; and can be accessed here. (link will be live after May 31, 2025)

    • An Independent External Review Committee confidentially reviews and evaluates the applications. Their deliberations are confidential and will not be shared.  

    • Based on their results, and subsequent review by the Grants Committee, recommendations will be made to the BCA Board for final approval.  

    • Applicants will be notified by mid-February 2026 of the decision regarding their proposals. 

    • Grant Awardees will receive a contract to execute and return before the beginning of the grant term. Contract term modifications will not be accepted.

    • Grant awardees must submit an informal midterm report by March 28, 2027 and a final report within 60 days of March 28, 2028. Failure to submit the midterm report will result in forfeiture of any remaining grant funds.

    •  An informal virtual site visit with BCA staff and Committee members is also required.

Exceptional Project Grants (XP)

One Year | $100,000

Breast Cancer Alliance invites clinical doctors and research scientists at any stage of their careers, including post docs, whose current proposal is focused on breast cancer, to apply for an Exceptional Project Grant.  

This award recognizes creative, unique and innovative research related to breast cancer. 

The term of the Exceptional Project Grant is one year, beginning on April 1, 2026. The grant provides salary support and project costs for a total of $100,000, distributed over a one-year period.  

    • Must be at an institution in the contiguous United States. 

    • Must not be a for-profit institution.  

  • Prior to submission of a formal grant proposal, BCA requires a Letter of Intent (LOI) and a separate CV that must be completed using the online form here and must be submitted by midnight on March 31, 2025.

    The LOI must contain:

    • The applicant’s name, job title and institution

    • The applicant’s full contact information

    • The complete project title and hypothesis

    • Outline the research aim(s) and methods

    • Include a brief discussion of the project’s potential impact

    • The CV should be in the current NIH biosketch format. 

    References for the LOI are not required

    Applicants will be informed by mid-May 2025 whether they have been invited to proceed with a formal application.

  • Full applications for the Exceptional Project Grant are due on or before midnight EDT on July 19, 2025; are by invitation only; and can be accessed here. (link will be live after May 31st, 2025)

    • An Independent External Review Committee confidentially reviews and evaluates the applications. Their deliberations are confidential and will not be shared.  

    • Based on their results, and subsequent review by the Grants Committee, recommendations will be made to the BCA Board for final approval.  

    • Applicants will be notified by mid-February 2026 of the decision regarding their proposals. 

    • Grant Awardees will receive a contract to execute and return before the beginning of the grant term. Contract term modifications will not be accepted.

    • Grant awardees must submit an informal midterm report by September 31, 2026 and a final report within 60 days of March 28, 2027. Failure to submit the midterm report will result in forfeiture of any remaining grant funds.  

    • A virtual, informal site visit with BCA research committee members is also required. 

Breast Cancer Alliance is one of the most prominent, private non-corporate breast cancer organizations in the United States. 

Breast Cancer Alliance provides seed money – scientific venture capital – to fund innovative breast cancer research with emphases on programs that have not yet qualified for federal grants. To secure federal funding, a researcher must prove a theory works. Breast Cancer Alliance creates the critical bridge between novel research and the opportunity to generate preliminary results with grants like our Exceptional Projects.

 

BCA encourages careers in breast cancer research and in clinical medicine. We award two year Young Investigator Grants to doctors and scientists in the early stages of their careers, often overlooked by the funding world until they have longer tenure. We also fund Breast Surgery Fellowships at Society of Surgical Oncology accredited institutions providing specialized post-graduate training in breast surgery. Ultimately, these physicians go on to improve both survival rates and quality of life for those they treat, often in parts of the country previously lacking this expertise. Our commitment to education and outreach is evident throughout Connecticut and Westchester County, NY. Each year, we allocate up to twenty-five percent of our funding to help underserved women access breast health care by lessening the financial burden which is often an obstacle to critical exams.

 

We are committed to transparency, both in how we allocate our funding and in how that funding is utilized. While we require stringent reporting from every one of our grantees, what distinguishes us from other foundations is that we visit each of our grantees to hear about the impact of our allocations firsthand. 

Past Research Grantees

Young Investigators

2025 RECIPIENTS 

Xiaojing Huang, MD, PhD, Rockefeller University, New York, NY

Functional consequences of obesity-dependent changes in adipose and tumor macrophage metabolism in breast cancer.

Petria Thompson, MD, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, CA

Targeting CDK2 to develop combinational strategies to target metastatic breast cancer.

Remco Bastiaannet, BSc, MSc, PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, MS

Paving the Way for Combination Therapies in HER2+ Metastatic Breast Cancer Treated with Alpha-Emitter Radiopharmaceutical Therapy.

2024 RECIPIENTS

Igor Bado, PhD, Mount Sinai, New York, NY

Deciphering mechanisms and impact of miRNAome alterations in bone metastasis.

Steven Corsello, MD, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Exploiting FOXA1 synthesis lethality to treat breast cancer.

Andrew Davis, MD, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

Improving outcomes with Traztuzamab Deruxtecan through innovative phase 1 trial with neratinib/biomarker analysis, Supported by Jane and Stuart Weitzman in memory of Irma Wallin.

Sarah Olsen, PhD, Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard University, Boston, MA

Mechanistic and functional characterization of DOTIL and Menin-ML chromatin complexes in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer.

Polina Vaitsenfeld, PhD, Rockefeller University, New York, NY

Immune modulation of tumor microenvironment in breast cancer by targeting CD40 with immune checkpoints/tumor antigens. 

Emma Watson, PhD, University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine, Worcester, MA

Aneuploidy associated metabolic vulnerabilities in breast cancer, Deborah G. Black Memorial Research Grant.

 

2023 RECIPIENTS 

Patricia Pereira, PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, WA

Target breast tumor heterogeneity and combat drug resistance with an antibody clicking strategy.

Neil Vasan, MD, PhD, Columbia University, New York, NY

Large-scale functional analysis of PIK3CA variants in breast cancer.

Hai Wang, PhD, Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, Buffalo, NY

Re-sensitizing the refractory breast cancer bone metastasis to endocrine therapies, Supported by Jane and Stuart Weitzman in memory of Irma Wallin.

Roberta Zappazodi, PhD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY

Tumor-metabolism-driven therapies to overcome TNBC immune resistance, Deborah G. Black Memorial Grant.          

 

2022 RECIPIENTS 

Raymond Acciavatti, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Self-steering 3D mammography.

Ana Christina Garrido-Castro, PhD, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA

Studying the evolutionary dynamics of tumor and immune microenvironment in triple-negative breast cancer.

Ryan Stowers, PhD, University of California – Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA

Understanding epigenomic remodeling induced by tumor mechanical. properties, Supported by friends of Stephanie Latham

Jessalyn Ubellacker, PhD, Harvard University, Boston, MA

Targeting metabolic vulnerabilities of breast cancer metastasis in lymph.

Alexander Valvezan, PhD, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Targeting triple-negative breast cancer by exploiting a metabolic vulnerability downstream of mTORC1.

 

2021 RECIPIENTS 

Gloria Echeverria, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine, Waco, TX

Characterizing and targeting mitochondrial metabolism in chemoresistant triple negative breast cancer.

Jennifer Rosenbluth, MD, PhD, Dana Farber Cancer Center, Boston, MA

Modeling cancer prevention in mammary organoids derived from BRCA1/2 mutation carriers.

Maria Soledad Sosa, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, New York, NY

Targeting disseminated breast cancer cells to prevent metastasis, Deborah G. Black Memorial Research Grant.

 

2020 RECIPIENTS 

Colt Egelston, PhD, City of Hope, Duarte, CA

Tumor-derived T cell receptors for engineered T cell therapy of breast cancer.

Pengda Liu, PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

Targeting the deubiquitinase OTUD6B in basal-like breast cancer.

Thomas O’Sullivan, PhD, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN

Multifunctional microimplants for sensing and delivery of response-guided treatment in breast cancer, Supported by Jill and John Coyle.

Marjan Rafat, SB, SM, PhD, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Novel mammary organoids to examine radiation-induced recurrence in HER2BC.

Laura Spring, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

The neoadjuvant model as a translational tool to improve outcomes in ER+ breast cancer, Deborah G. Black Memorial Grant.

Eneda Toska, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (first year: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)

Elucidating the role of ARID1A in lineage plasticity and endocrine therapy resistance in ER+ breast cancer, Deborah G. Black Memorial Grant.

 

2019 RECIPIENTS 

Teresa Davoli, PhD, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY

Targeting breast cancer specific aneuploidy.

Madeleine Oudin, BSc, MSc, PhD, Tufts University, Medford, MA

Dissecting the role of innervation in breast cancer progression and metastasis.

Nidhi Sahni, MD, MD Anderson, Houston, TX

Novel role of spliceosome in homologous recombination deficiencies in TNBC.

Exceptional Projects

.

 

2025 RECIPIENTS

Pietro Genovese, PhD, Boston Childrens Hospital, Boston MA

Redirecting B cell specificity to improve immunotherapy of breast cancer, Deborah G. Black Memorial Grant

Claudia Fischbach-Teschl, PhD, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Seizing control: Matrix regulation of breast cancer bone metastasis.

Agnel Sfeir, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, New York NY

Investigating the impact of mutagenic DNA repair by MMEJ on therapy resistance.

Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA

Defining how the gut microbiome promotes lung-associated metastasis of breast tumor cells.

 

2024 RECIPIENTS

Pooja Advani, PhD, Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL

Targeting de novo lipogenesis to enhance immunotherapy in triple negative breast cancer.

Andrew Elia, PhD, Harvard University, Boston, MA

Targeting DNA replication defects in homologous recombination-deficient breast cancer.

Thordur Oskarssun, PhD, Moffit Cancer Center, Tampa, FL

Targeting novel mediators of chemotherapy resistance in dormant breast cancer.

 

2023 RECIPIENTS

Camilla dos Santos, PhD , Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY

Characterization of strategies for immunosuppression of breast cancer development.

Christy Hagan, PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute, Kansas City

Progesterone promotes breast cancer immune evasion through downregulation of antigen presentation.

Li Lan, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

Targeting R-loop and mRNA-dependent repair in homologous recombination-proficient breast cancer.

Laurie Littlepage, PhD, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN

Overcoming endocrine therapy resistance by targeting the response to metabolic stress and immune response.

Jordana Phillips, PhD, and Michael Cassidy, PhD, Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA

Comparing impact of contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) to breast MRI on barriers to breast cancer treatment.

 

2022 RECIPIENTS

Barbara Fingelton, PhD, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Type II IL4 receptor blockade as a strategy for treating breast-to-brain metastasis.

Hyungjin Kim, PhD, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY

DNA replication fork instability as a target for the synthetic lethality of breast cancer.

Xin Lu, PhD, Notre Dame, South Bend, IN

“Off-the-shelf” novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK cell therapy for metastatic TNBC, Supported by the Jeffery family in honor of Karen Lowney.

David Rimm, PhD, Yale University, New Haven, CT, Budding carcinogenesis; a novel pathway to malignancy, Deborah G. Black Memorial Research Grant.

Anna C. Weiss, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA

The impact of neoadjuvant endocrine therapy on breast cancer axillary outcomes, Supported by Jane and Stuart Weitzman in memory of Irma Wallin.

 

2021 RECIPIENTS

Scott Abrams, PhD and Michael Nemeth, Roswell Park, Buffalo, NY

Unique combination immunotherapy to confront triple negative breast cancer.

Rumela Chakrabarti, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

A novel combination immunotherapy to improve treatment of metastatic triple negative breast cancer, Deborah G. Black Memorial Research Grant.

Jianua Yu, PhD, City of Hope, Duarte, CA

An oncolytic virus-engineered to express a full-length anti-CD47 lgG1 antibody for the treatment of breast cancer brain metastasis, Supported by Jane and Stuart Weitzman in memory of Irma Wallin.

 

2020 RECIPIENTS

Mary L. Disis, MD, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Vaccination Targeting Breast Cancer Stem Cells, Supported by Susan Bevan & Tony Daddino.

Hani Goodarzi, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Leveraging circulating cancer-specific orphan RNAs for screening of women with BRCA1/2 mutations, The Walsh Family Grant.

Poulikos Poulikakos, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY

Targeting SHP2 as a converging node of targeted and immune therapy in TNBC.

Jose Silva, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York

Alterations in microtubule dynamics: the Yin and Yang of chemoresistance in triple negative breast cancers, Supported by Tami Eagle Bowling and Friends.

Sichun Yang, PhD, Case Western University, Cleveland, OH

Drugging the undrugged for advanced ER-positive breast cancer.

Junran Zhang, MD, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Interruption of Squalene Epoxidase and DNA Damage Response.

Breast Cancer Alliance provides seed money – scientific venture capital – to fund innovative breast cancer research with emphases on programs that have not yet qualified for federal grants. To secure federal funding, a researcher must prove a theory works. Breast Cancer Alliance creates the critical bridge between novel research and the opportunity to generate preliminary results with grants like our Exceptional Projects.

FAQs

  • Yes

  • Yes

  • Yes

  • No

  • If more than one individual will be formally listed as a PI on the project, and they are from different institutions, then a someone authorized to speak on behalf of the institution in terms of committing to support, and who has direct knowledge of the status and qualifications of the PI, should each sign off on behalf of his/her respective institution.

  • No

  • There is no limitation on the subject matter of the project as long as it is reasonably related to the treatment, prevention or cure of breast cancer.  However, the proposed project should be an exceptional project that can stand alone. Existing funding for a related aspect of the proposed project is not in itself disqualifying, but we would not, for example, consider the payment for sequencing studies in an otherwise funded project to be eligible for an exceptional project grant.  

  • No. Researchers should coordinate with their institution’s grants management or sponsored programs offices before applying.

  • Yes, as long as they meet all the stated eligibility criteria for a Young Investigator.  They must also provide a letter of support from their institution confirming that they will have institutional resources available to them throughout the two-year term of the grant.

  • Yes

  • The application should be submitted through the link on this page with all required components included in the document.  Our guidelines mimic NIH format.

  • The content of each required statement should follow the NIH requirements for the corresponding statements.

  • No, but the electronic submission must be submitted by the deadline date or it will not be considered for funding.

  • You do not have to be a US citizen to apply, but you must be affiliated with a US institution at which the grant project will be carried out.

  • Being a current reviewer is not disqualifying for submission of an LOI or application, but an individual who is submitting an LOI, or is invited to submit a full application based on an LOI, would not be eligible to serve as a reviewer during the time his/her LOI or application are pending review.

  • We don't require the full scope of detailed documents required by NIH, although if you have them and  wish to submit this, we will accept it. If you have already received full IRB approval for the section of your project involving human subjects, then you can simply state that, and that will be sufficient for our purposes  If you don't yet have that approval, or the proposed NIH documents, you can provide brief summaries of the plans for the pertinent categories, in a manner that will provide assurances to the reviewers that the risks, safeguards and proper population composition have been considered.