Founded in 1999, the Colorectal Cancer Alliance is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to ending colorectal cancer within our lifetime. It honors the memory of Christine Sapienza and supports affected families through investments in research—totaling nearly $10 million, including nearly $3 million in early-stage grants to innovative researchers.
The Colorectal Cancer Alliance introduces the Project Cure CRC, a grant program aiming at transformative advances in colorectal cancer (CRC) research. The program focuses on preclinical and clinical translational research with the potential to substantially impact the diagnosis, treatment, or survivorship of CRC. Project Cure CRC emphasizes high-risk/high-reward projects that accelerate new therapies and technologies from bench to bedside. It encourages proposals that utilize collaborations, public-private partnerships, and covers a range of awards for different levels of investigators and projects. The grant supports research in immunotherapy, liquid biopsies, clinical trial efficiency using emerging technologies, development of vaccines for CRC recurrence prevention, use of artificial intelligence (AI) for precision medicine, targeting cell signaling pathways, development of novel theranostic molecules, expanding local and systemic therapies for Oligometastatic Disease, and building infrastructure for a comprehensive patient data repository. Specifically, the Opportunistic Award focuses on seed grants for novel research from small startup companies, offering up to $500,000 for one year to propel CRC research towards curative science.