Sarcoma UK Genomics Research Grant Open for Applications
Sarcoma UK is a national research-supporting charity that that funds research to increase knowledge and awareness of all forms of sarcoma (bone and soft tissue cancers) and support people affected by sarcoma. It has invested more than £3.5million in research since 2009 and aims to develop an effective treatment within the next ten years.
Sarcoma UK launched its Genomic Research Programme in 2018 to utilise data and samples from the 100,000 Genomes Project to advance understanding of sarcoma and develop more accurate methods for diagnosis and prognosis and, ultimately, drive advances in personalised medicine for treatment of sarcoma.
The Genomic Research Programme issues an annual call for proposals for a single research grant of £250,000 for a project to further knowledge of sarcoma genomics.
Applications are invited from Principle Investigators who hold a permanent post at either a UK Higher Education Institution or with the NHS. A research grant of up to £250,000 is available to fund direct research costs. Proposals that aim to build on, or link in with, the work previously funded by Sarcoma UK as part of this funding stream are also encouraged.
Two projects have previously been funded by the Genomic Research Programme:
In 2018, the grant was awarded to PI Adrienne Flanagan (University College London) for the project ‘GeCIPing Sarcoma: A UK-led initiative to personalise sarcoma treatment’. This three year project takes the data collected as part of the UK Government’s 100,000 Genomes Project and lays out the blueprint for how this data can be harnessed by research to work towards personalised treatment for sarcoma patients.
In 2019, the grant was awarded to PI Professor Andrew Beggs (University of Birmingham) for the project ‘Leveraging single cell & long read sequencing to unlock the molecular heterogeneity and immunogenome of sarcomas’. This two year project aims to use tissue samples from the 100,000 Genomes Projects to analyse the proteins being produced in cells and the level of gene activity, to provide a comparison between people with sarcoma and people who don’t have sarcoma to further knowledge of why sarcomas don’t respond well to cancer immunotherapies.
The call guidelines and application form for the 2020 Genomic Research Programme grant are available from the Sarcoma UK website.
Applications must be submitted by the closing date of 5 November 2020 (3pm).
It is anticipated that the award will be announced in April 2021.
Sarcoma UK has also announced that the 2020 application round for its Clinical Research Grant has been cancelled due to disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Sarcoma UK has, however, made available £50,000 through the Collaborations Clinical Fund 2020 to support a single collaborative project or initiative in sarcoma research.
More information about this research funding opportunity and the application process is available on the RESEARCHconnect funding information platform. RESEARCHconnect provides up-to-the minute content, insight and analysis on research funding news and policy. To find out more about how RESEARCHconnect can keep you in the know, and subscription fees, contact us today.