SCI Innovation Awards

innovation award

Award information

The Stanford Cancer Institute’s (SCI) mission is to reduce cancer mortality and improve cancer care through comprehensive programs of cancer research, prevention, treatment, education, and outreach. To achieve its mission, the leadership and members relentlessly pursue multiple strategic aims, which include fostering interdisciplinary basic cancer research, translating scientific discovery into clinical research and optimal patient care, developing improved approaches to the prevention, early detection, precise diagnosis, and effective treatment of cancer, and improving the cancer patient experience by using research to develop and validate innovative initiatives in patient-centered care.

In keeping with its core mission, the SCI offers Innovation Awards to support projects focused on the acceleration of basic, translational, clinical, and population-based cancer research and related to the development of investigator-initiated clinical trials.  

Project priorities

  • Bold and creative research projects
  • Multi-disciplinary collaboration, including collaborations involving Stanford faculty beyond the School of Medicine or inter-programmatic collaborations across the seven SCI research programs
  • Plans for submission of an external peer-reviewed (preferably NCI) application
  • Investigator-initiated clinical trial
  • Research related to community outreach and engagement

Funding

Innovation awards with funding amounts of $75,000 will be available to support research projects for up to 12 months in duration.

Named awards

The Krishnan Shah Family Innovation Award
Lata Krishnan and Ajay Shah are passionate about cancer research, science, and entrepreneurship. The award supports high-risk, novel projects that will advance new approaches for the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer.

The Michael Toshio Foundation Cure for Cancer Catalyst Award
The Michael Toshio Cure for Cancer Foundation is dedicated to cancer research. The award supports early-phase clinical trials based on novel concepts from Stanford’s laboratories.

The Shmunis Family Awards in Cancer Therapeutics and Pancreatic Cancer
Stemming from their own family experience with cancer, Vlad and Sandra Shmunis are committed to advancing cancer research. The awards support projects that develop and test new therapeutic drug candidates and have the potential to detect and treat pancreatic cancer.

The Behar Sarcoma Research Award
Dedicated to improving the experience of people with sarcoma, Jerry and Leslie Behar have provided support to Stanford for sarcoma research and care. The award supports collaborative projects that show promise for the development of more effective treatments at every stage of the disease.

March 2025 Awardees

Prior Awardees

Stanford Cancer Institute Cancer Innovation Award

SCI Women’s Cancer Center Innovation Award

Shmunis Family Innovation Awards in Cancer Therapeutics

Michael Toshio Cure for Cancer Catalyst Award

  • Modulation of GVHD through the EPO/EPOR axis

    Robert Negrin, MD, professor of medicine (blood and marrow transplantation and cellular therapy), and Edgar Engleman, MD, professor of pathology and of medicine (immunology and rheumatology), received a Michael Toshio Cure for Cancer Catalyst Award.

Stanford Cancer Institute Cancer Innovation Award

SCI Nodal Award

SCI Pancreatic Cancer Innovation Award

  • Rewiring RAS pathway mutations to activate programmed cell death in pancreatic cancer

    Gerald Crabtree, MD, David Korn, MD, Professor of Pathology and professor of developmental biology, and Nathanael Gray, PhD, Krishnan-Shah Family Professor of chemical and systems biology, were awarded an SCI Pancreatic Cancer Innovation Award for their project, “Rewiring RAS pathway mutations to activate programmed cell death in pancreatic cancer.”

SCI Women’s Cancer Center Innovation Award

Behar Innovation Award in Sarcoma Research