Season of Giving
As people around the Tristate got ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, CancerFree KIDS hosted an Evening of Gratitude, announcing a record-breaking year in fundraising for the organization.
CancerFree KIDS will invest a record $1.65 million this year to fund innovative pediatric cancer research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. This milestone marks CancerFree KIDS’ largest single-year funding increase of $250,000, as well as the highest annual funding total in its 23-year history - including, for the first time ever, awarding $1 million to Cincinnati Children’s.
“To be able to award $1 million to Cincinnati Children’s for the first time is a moment of pride and purpose for our organization,” said Jill Brinck, executive director of CancerFree KIDS. “Every dollar raised means more opportunities for researchers to explore new, less toxic treatments - and more hope for kids and families facing cancer.”
This year’s total also includes $650,000 for research projects at Nationwide Children’s, furthering CancerFree KIDS’ mission to find gentler, more effective treatments for childhood cancers. Since 2002, the organization has invested $12.5 million in early-stage research projects, fueling 265 new ideas with the potential to change outcomes for children and families.
The grants will once again support New Idea Awards, designed to fund bold concepts in the earliest stages of discovery, and Accelerator Awards, which allow researchers to continue promising work that has already demonstrated success.
“Funding from CancerFree KIDS is crucial to progress,” said Dr. Stella Davies, director of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Immune Deficiency at Cincinnati Children’s. “By investing in research in its critical early stages, CancerFree KIDS paves the way for researchers to explore ideas that they might never have the chance to pursue otherwise. The organization fills a unique need, one that drives innovation and allows for groundbreaking discoveries that hold the promise to bring more effective treatments to kids.”
CancerFree Kids 2025 Research Grant Investments
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
New Idea Awards
Project Title: Targeting LMP2A with an AAV-based TCR-mimic bispecific to treat EBV-associated cancers
Principal Investigator: Abuzar Kaleem, PhD
Project Title: Metabolically targeting alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma to exploit novel therapeutic strategies
Principal Investigator: Jie Li, PhD
Project Title: Overcoming rejection of allogeneic CAR-expressing immune cells using a novel HLA-targeting shRNA incorporated into the CAR construct
Principal Investigator: Meisam Naeimi Kararoudi, DVM, PhD
Project Title: Combining the multi-kinase inhibitor brigatinib with the proteasome inhibitor ixazomib
Principal Investigator: Janet Oblinger, PhD
Project Title: Decoding tumor heterogeneity at the mestatic bottleneck in osteosarcoma
Principal Investigator: Kelly Gutpell, MD, PhD
Project Title: From Click to Insight: A Point-and-Click Computational Pipeline to Study How Rare Childhood Cancer Fusion Genes Rewire the Genome Using Zebrafish Models
Principal Investigator: Cenny Taslim, PhD
Project Title: Targeting aberrant splicing and Rhabdomyosarcoma: a novel bichromatic MDM2 Reporter approach
Principal Investigator: Chloe Nagasawa , PhD (OSU)
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Accelerator Awards
Project Title: Developing a novel Human IL-27-expressing oncolytic virus for malignant gliomas
Principal Investigator: Alexia Martin
Project Title: Matrix-associated signals mediating growth and survival of osteosarcoma lung metastases
Principal Investigator: Ryan Roberts, MD, PhD
Project Title: Dual-targeting of tumor and stroma using gene therapy based expression of tri-specific antibodies
Principal Investigator: Julie Tomolonis, MD, PhD
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center New Idea Awards
Project Title: Unraveling the role of RMND1 in polyamine depletion therapy for pediatric acute Myeloid leukemia
Principal Investigator: Karina Elizabeth Jimenez Camacho, PhD
]Project Title: Defining the role of IRAK4 signaling on LSC chromatin state
Principal Investigator: Issac Choi
Project Title: Mechanism of Action for Targeting LARG-RhoA Signaling in Relapsed Neuroblastoma
Principal Investigator: Yuan Lin
Project Title: Understanding the role of RAS mutations in resistance to menin inhibition in KMT2Ar pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
Principal Investigator: Linde A. Miles, PhD
Project Title: Suppressing both inflammation and MEK to cure neurofibroma
Principal Investigator: Nancy Ratner, PhD
Project Title: Targeting glutathione metabolism in pediatric AML
Principal Investigator: Paula Saez Raez, BSc
Project Title: Splicing neoantigens as therapeutic targets in pediatric AML
Principal Investigator: Nathan Salomonis, PhD
Project Title: Novel vulnerabilities in acute myeloid leukemia
Principal Investigator: Zhe Wang
Project Title: Stopping Pediatric AML in Its Track by Dialing Down Inflammation in RUNX1-FPD Children
Principal Investigator: Chen Wang, MD, PhD
Project Title: Identifying targets to overcome cisplatin resistance in pediatric liver cancer
Principal Investigator: Peng V. Wu, MD, PhD
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Accelerator Awards
Project Title: Therapeutic targeting of the gut microbiota-driven TIFA signaling in refractory AML
Principal Investigator: Puneet Agarwal, PhD
Project Title: Understanding the Role of IGF2BP1 in Hematopoietic Ontogeny and Myeloid Leukemia Development in Infancy
Principal Investigator: Lynn Lee, MD
Project Title: LINE-1-Mediated inflammaging in High-Risk Pediatric Cancers
Principal Investigator: Kristie Ramos, MD
Project Title: CHAF1B degraders as a new first-in-class pediatric AML therapy
Principal Investigator: Andrew Volk, PhD
Project Title: Small molecules targeting SOS1 allosteric site in KRAS-driven JMML
Principal Investigator: Yi Zheng, PhD