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.
Project Cure CRC is a grant program by the Colorectal Cancer Alliance focused on preclinical and clinical translational research aimed at having a significant impact on the diagnosis, treatment, or survivorship of colorectal cancer. It prioritizes proposals with the potential to advance colorectal cancer research toward a curative science, emphasizing High-Risk/High-Reward projects that accelerate new therapies from laboratory to patient care. The program encourages projects involving collaborations and public-private partnerships, welcoming submissions for various award types from academic and industry researchers, with plans to invest tens of millions for research and infrastructure needs. Research areas include immunotherapy advances, liquid biopsies for patient outcome improvement and early detection, enhancing clinical trials, developing recurrence prevention therapies, leveraging AI for precision medicine, targeting cell signaling pathways for a cure, developing novel theranostic molecules, expanding local and systemic therapy applications in Oligometastatic Disease, and creating a comprehensive patient data repository. The Team Science Award, specifically, supports team-based science ventures aiming to transform CRC research into curative science, with priority given to projects that address unmet clinical needs, offering up to $6,000,000 over three years.