The Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF) has issued three requests for applications in the field of neurofibromatosis (NF) and related disorders, including schwannomatosis.
Young Investigator Award
- Purpose: To help early-career NF researchers, such as senior doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers, get established as independent NF investigators. The main function of the YIA program is to serve as a ‘seeding mechanism’ for researchers to secure larger grants. The YIA mechanism supports basic and translational research towards:
- Understanding cellular, genetic, and molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of NF1 and all types of schwannomatosis (SWN) including NF2-related schwannomatosis
- Identifying and/or testing novel therapeutic targets
- Testing candidate therapeutics
- Analysis of natural history of NF
- Eligibility:
- Applicant must be a graduate student pursuing an MD, PhD, or equivalent degree, or a postdoctoral fellow no more than 7 years past completion of their first doctoral degree.
- Applicant must be affiliated with the laboratory of a senior researcher who is the applicant’s research sponsor. Only one YIA application per laboratory per year will be funded.
- Applicant must be able to commit to the following minimum effort requirements:
- Predoctoral: 90% effort
- PhD postdoctoral: 80% effort
- MD postdoctoral: all or most of research effort
- An individual may not receive more than one postdoctoral YIA in their career.
- Budget and Project Period:
- Funding: Base salary plus up to 20% fringe benefits and up to 10% indirect costs. Base salary depends on the awardee’s years of experience at the start of the award – see RFA for details.
- Project Period: 2 years. Postdocs may be approved for a third year.
- Deadlines: LOI due December 2, 2025
- RFA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ZxqnX8E8_boLyCd1uh364wKOktQNyBlLQoIm4vPMDM/edit?tab=t.0
Drug Discovery Initiative
- Purpose: To stimulate NF drug discovery by funding researchers proposing to investigate novel or repurposing therapies for NF or to validate new NF targets. Proposals are expected to be short and concentrated on obtaining key preliminary data needed to quickly advance to the next step of drug discovery. Specifically, applications must fall into one the following two categories:
- Support early-stage testing of therapeutic compounds for the treatment of NF. Shelved compounds will be prioritized.
- Support the validation of a novel NF target. Targets may have been described as potentially relevant in NF or may be de novo. The mining of existing publicly available datasets is encouraged.
- Eligibility:
- Applicants should have an MD, PhD, or equivalent degree.
- Applicants are expected to have already established in their laboratory, or have identified collaborators with, all required resources including in vivo and in vitro models.
- CTF requires all applicants to acquire a personal ORCID ID (https://orcid.org/) and to elect CTF as a trusted partner on ORCID.
- Budget and Project Period: Up to $200,000, including up to 10% indirect costs, over 2 years.
- Deadlines: LOI due February 2, 2026
- RFA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hX8v_emP8st8g1w7YgjGmEgfycSjak51R4hgD7agfnE/edit?tab=t.0
Clinical Research Award
- Purpose: To advance the development of effective clinical treatments, interventions, and management of patients living with NF. Priority consideration will be given to proposals that:
- Investigate bold, forward-thinking solutions and treatments that could improve the everyday functioning of people with NF.
- Promote new directions for disease management that would likely progress to future large-scale studies with the potential to compete for additional external funding.
- Eligibility:
- Applicants should have an MD, PhD, or other advanced degree.
- CTF requires all applicants to acquire a personal ORCID ID (https://orcid.org/) and to elect CTF as a trusted partner on ORCID.
- Budget and Project Period: Up to $200,000, including up to 10% indirect costs, over 2 years.
- Deadlines: LOI due February 3, 2026
- RFA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ngOoruHjbzwYnaxuevvAX1ZRxeTlHxts5GIM_gbJqwc/edit?tab=t.0
To Apply:
- These are open RFPs (UCSF may submit an unlimited number of applications).
- Follow application instructions in RFP, conferring with your Grants Officer as needed. Please notify your Grants Officer of your intention to apply as soon as possible to ensure that they will have enough time to support your application.
For more information and to review complete application instructions and eligibility requirements, please visit https://www.ctf.org/funding-opportunities/.
Due Date