Rally Foundation Awards $5.5M for a Record Number of Grants to 75 Childhood Cancer Researchers

In 2025, Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research (Rally) is thrilled to award a total of $5.5 million in childhood cancer research grants to 75 researchers across 40 institutions worldwide. This is the foundation’s largest award value to be distributed since its founding in 2005.

Rally proudly funds the best and the brightest researchers, seeking the most innovative and promising research. This year’s awards include 75 grants given to 8 Consortiums, 23 Independent Investigators, 13 Young Investigators, 13 Fellows, 4 Outside the Box and 14 Career Development Awards.

“This brings the total amount of research funds that Rally has awarded to $40.5 million — and it is the highest amount we have been able to award in one year,” says Dean Crowe, Founder and CEO. “In 2024, we were delighted by the significant increase in funds raised thanks to our grassroot supporters, special events and incredibly generous corporate donors. Our mission speaks to all: empower volunteers and fund the best research wherever it may be to help find better childhood cancer treatments with fewer long-term side effects and, ultimately, cures.”

Rally grants are awarded based on a competitive dual peer-review process conducted by the Rally Medical Advisory Board, an international team of leading childhood cancer experts. The grants fund all levels of research, from science at the bench to translational, and they include fellows, young investigators and independent investigators.

Other childhood cancer organizations are encouraged by Rally to collaborate and co-fund research projects, and Rally also successfully administers A Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards Program to streamline the application process for researchers and foundations. Organizations that were part of this year’s Collaboration include Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation, Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer, Kids Join the Fight, Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

“We are so grateful to all who have taken the #RallyFit47 Challenge, attended a Rally signature event like Rally On the Runway or the annual Rally Benefit Bash, collected change through 4 Quarters 4 Research, asked for donations in lieu of birthday gifts or made charitable gifts to Rally through any of our programs,” said Crowe. “Every dollar matters. It could just be that dollar that finds the cure!”

Those supporters are assured that their donations will have a significant impact, with 93 cents of every dollar going directly toward supporting Rally’s mission. Rally has received a perfect score of 100 three times from Charity Navigator for its financial health and transparency and is on track to receive another perfect score.

Rally Career Development Awards

Funded by Rally Foundation

• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Anand Bhagwat, M.D., Ph.D., for Novel Mechanisms of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Resistance to Cell Therapy
• Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope: Rusha Bhandari, M.D., for Social Determinants of Health and Aging in Childhood Cancer Survivors
• The Hospital for Sick Children: Anirban Das, M.D., D.M., for Designing Biomarker-Guided Precision Trials for RRD Gliomas
• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: Robyn Gartrell, M.D., for Effect of Radiation and CD47 on Microglia in Diffuse Midline Glioma
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Riaz Gillani, M.D., for a Mechanistic and Computational Interrogation of DNA Damage in Ewing Sarcoma
• Children’s Hospital Medical Center: Courtney Jones, Ph.D., for Targeting Metabolic Vulnerabilities in Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia
• Baylor College of Medicine: Sujith Joseph, Ph.D., for Targeting High-Risk Medulloblastoma Using Locally-Delivered Endoglin CAR-T
• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Jennifer Kalish, M.D., Ph.D., for Pediatric Liver Cancer Formation in Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome
• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: Michael Koldobskiy, M.D., Ph.D., for Exploiting Epigenetic Vulnerabilities to Enable Immunotherapy for DMG
• Medical University of South Carolina: Casey Langdon, Ph.D., for Converging on AKT and XPO1 Dependency in Select Pediatric Cancers
• Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: Yang Li, Ph.D., for Single-cell Multimodal Omic Analyses of Epigenetic Dysregulation in pHGGs
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: Michael Ortiz, M.D., for Clinical Translation of an XPO1 Dependency in Select Pediatric Solid Tumors
• Baylor College of Medicine: Jeremy Schraw, Ph.D., for Integrating Epidemiology and Genomics to Characterize Rare Childhood Tumors
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Tao Yue, Ph.D., for Leveraging the Immune System for the Treatment of Metastatic Osteosarcoma

Outside the Box Grants

Funded by Rally Foundation

• Boston College: Eunji Cho, Ph.D., for Dyadic Storytelling for Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer
• Jude Children’s Research Hospital: Lillian Guenther, M.D., for Clonal Assessment of Osteosarcoma Metastasis: A Pilot Study
• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Cassie Kline, M.D., for Understanding the Microbiome Role in Pediatric CNS Tumors
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: James Morrow, M.D., Ph.D., for Driving Osteosarcoma Differentiation as a Novel Therapeutic Approach

Brain and Central Nervous System Cancers

Funded by Rally Foundation

• The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center: Aaron Fan, M.D., Ph.D., for Combination Vaccine and Oncolytic Virotherapy in Pediatric Brain Tumors (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• University of Alabama at Birmingham: Rintaro Hashizume, M.D., Ph.D., for Targeting Lactate-dependent Transcription in Pediatric Glioma (Independent Investigator Grant)
• The Hospital for Sick Children: Annie Huang, M.D., Ph.D., for Molecular Prognosticators for Rare Embryonal Brain Tumors in the HS4 Trial (Consortium Grant)
• Albert Einstein College of Medicine: George Karagiannis, D.V.M., Ph.D., for Promoting Thymocyte Egress to Prevent Chemotherapy-Related Immunotoxicity (Young Investigator Grant)
• Leland Stanford Junior University: Thien Nguyen, M.D., for Macropinocytosis as a Novel Target for Pediatric Brain Cancer Therapy (Young Investigator Grant)
• Institute Curie: Elaine Piaggio, Ph.D., for Optimizing Immunotherapies for Rhabdoid Tumors (Independent Investigator Grant)
• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Adam Resnick, Ph.D., for Children’s Brain Tumor Network: Accelerating Discovery and Clinical Trials (Consortium Grant)
• University of Colorado Denver: Dong Wang, Ph.D., for Mediator Kinase CDK8 is a Therapeutic Target in MYC-driven Medulloblastoma (Young Investigator Grant)

Co-funded by Rally Foundation and a Collaborative Partner

• Baylor College of Medicine: Mohamad Abu Arja, M.D., for Targeting the Neurovascular Niche in Group 3 Medulloblastoma (Young Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• Johns Hopkins School of Medicine: Challice Bonifant, M.D., Ph.D., for B7-H3/CAR NK Cells as Therapy for Pediatric Brain Cancer (Independent Investigator Grant) co-funded by Rally Foundation and Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation
• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Kristopher Bosse, M.D., for Development of GPC2 CAR T Cells for Pediatric CNS Tumors (Independent Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• Georgia Tech Research Corporation: Rafael Davalos, Ph.D., for Robotic Electroporation for Targeted Ablation and BBB Disruption (Consortium Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• Massachusetts General Hospital: Andrew Elia, M.D., Ph.D., for Targeting DNA Repair to Rescue CAR-T Exhaustion in Diffuse Midline Glioma (Independent Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation
• Seattle Children’s Hospital: Myron Evans, Ph.D., for Targeting the CDK8 Kinase Module in MYC-amplified Medulloblastoma (Young Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center: Gregory Friedman, M.D., for Interrogation of Brain Tumor Immunophenotypes with Expansion Microscopy (Independent Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• Emory University: Jorge Jimenez Macias, Ph.D., for Elucidating the Vascular Biology of RTK-mutant Pediatric High-grade Gliomas (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• Augusta University Research Institute: David Munn, M.D., for Novel Combination Immunotherapy for Pediatric Brain Tumors (Independent Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and CureSearch for Children’s Cancer
• The Hospital for Sick Children: Anthony Pak Yin Liu, FHKCPaed, for Clinical Utility of Liquid Biopsy for CNS Germ Cell Tumors (Young Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Sina Neyazi, M.D., for Metabolic Reprogramming as a Resistance Mechanism in Diffuse Midline Glioma (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Kids Join the Fight

Funded by a Collaborative Partner

• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Oren Becher, M.D., for HBEGF as a novel therapeutic target in Diffuse Midline Glioma (Independent Investigator Grant), funded by Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation

Blood Cancers

Funded by Rally Foundation

• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Michalis Agathocleous, Ph.D., for Discovery of a Metabolic Vulnerability in Pediatric T-ALL (Independent Investigator Grant)
• New York University Grossman School of Medicine: Juan Balandran, Ph.D., for Investigating Therapeutic Avenues to Prevent Antigenic Escape in B-ALL (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• Emory University: Gianna Branella, Ph.D., for Developing CD5 CAR Gamma Delta T Cellular Therapies for T-cell Leukemia (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• Leland Stanford Junior University: Kara Davis, D.O., for BCL2 and Immunotherapy Targeting to Improve Outcomes for Infant ALL (Consortium Grant)
• The Hospital for Sick Children: Grace Egan, M.D., Ph.D., for Targeting Ribosome Biogenesis in Childhood, Adolescent and Young Adult AML (Independent Investigator Grant)
• The Hospital for Sick Children: Lindsay Jibb, Ph.D., for Developing a Tool to Measure Parental Decisional Distress in Childhood ALL (Independent Investigator Grant)
• The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society: Gwen Nichols, M.D., for Real World Evidence Project (Independent Investigator Grant)
• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Miguel Quijada-Alamo, Ph.D., for Unravelling Novel Genetic Dependencies of CRLF2-rearranged Childhood B-ALL (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles: Brittany Van Remortel, M.D., for A Two-Part Clinical Trial to Reduce Sedentary Time in early AYAs with ALL (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• Child Jesus Pediatric Hospital: Enrico Velardi, Ph.D., for Regeneration of Thymic Function to Enhance Cancer Immunotherapy (Independent Investigator Grant)

Co-Funded by Rally Foundation and a Collaborative Partner

• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: Margarita Dionysiou, M.D., for Harnessing miR-21 to Enhance Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and the Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation

Co-Funded by Collaborative Partners

• Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute: Ani Deshpande, Ph.D., for Targeting Chromatin Control of Leukemia Stem Cell Identity (Independent Investigator Grant), co-funded by Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer and the Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation

Solid Tumors

Funded by Rally Foundation

• Dalhousie University: Jasmine Barra, Ph.D., for Defining Critical Features of Wilms Tumor with Spatial Transcriptomics (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• Baylor College of Medicine: Julie Gastier-Foster, Ph.D., for Pediatric Sarcoma Diagnoses in LMICs: Can Gene Fusion Testing Leapfrog IHC? (Consortium Grant)
• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: Rachel Hurley, M.D., Ph.D., for Modulating the Tumor Micro-Environment in Pediatric Rhabdomyosarcoma (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology: Xiaofan Lu, Ph.D., for Molecular Underpinnings of Translocation Renal Cell Carcinomas (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• The University of California, San Francisco: Amanda Marinoff, M.D., for Advancing Precision Oncology in Osteosarcoma (Young Investigator Grant)
• Jude Children’s Research Hospital: Janeala Morsby, Ph.D., for Synergy of ATM and PARP Inhibitors in Pediatric Osteosarcoma (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant)
• University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center: Danh Truong, Ph.D., for Investigating the Spatial Heterogeneity and Cellular Taxonomy of DSRCTs (Young Investigator Grant)
• University of Colorado Denver: Michael Verneris, M.D., for When CAR T Cells Fall Short (Independent Investigator Grant)
• The Hospital for Sick Children: Jonathan Wasserman, M.D., Ph.D., for Outcomes of Childhood-onset Thyroid Cancer from a Multinational Consortium (Consortium Grant)
• Emory University: Jason Yustein, M.D., Ph.D., for Targeting SUMOylation in Myc-driven Osteosarcoma (Independent Investigator Grant)
• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: Lindy Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., for Evaluating the Combination of Targeted Therapies and Immunotherapy in MPNST (Young Investigator Grant)

Co-Funded by Rally Foundation and a Collaborative Partner

• Children’s Hospital Medical Center: Roshni Dasgupta, M.D., for Assessing Image-Defined Risk Factors in Children with Neuroblastoma (Consortium Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer
• Jude Children’s Research Hospital: Ian Delahunty, Ph.D., for Capitalizing on Functional Genomics with Targeted Protein Degradation (Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer

Funded by a Collaborative Partner

• Purdue University: Nathaniel Mabe, Ph.D., Pharm.D., for Targeting the TRIM28-SETDB1 Axis to Enhance Anti-GD2 Therapy in EWS (Young Investigator Grant), funded by Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer
• Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles: Jinseok Park, Ph.D., for Spatial Molecular Heterogeneity Regulating Rhabdomyosarcoma Invasion (Independent Investigator Grant), funded by Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer

Mixed Brain/CNS, Solid Tumor and Blood Cancers

Funded by Rally Foundation

• Uganda Child Cancer Foundation: Racheal Angom, M.MED., for Enhancing Pediatric Cancer Care in Uganda with UCI-Ped-Reg and UCI-Ped-DASH (Independent Investigator Grant)
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Brian Crompton, M.D., for Development of a Liquid Biopsy Multi-cancer Detection Assay for Pediatrics (Independent Investigator Grant)
• The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine: Giselle Saulnier Sholler, M.D., for Beat Childhood Cancer Research Consortium — BCC020 Clinical Trial Site Opening (Independent Investigator Grant)

Co-Funded by Rally Foundation and a Collaborative Partner

• University of California, San Francisco: Geoffrey Cheng, M.D., for Biology of Diffuse Alveolar Hemorrhage in Stem Cell Transplant Recipients (Young Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer
• BC Cancer, part of the Provincial Health Services Authority: Haifeng Zhang, Ph.D., for Immunotherapeutic Targeting of IL1RAP in Rare Pediatric Cancers (Young Investigator Grant), co-funded by Rally Foundation and Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer

Survivorship / Quality of Life / Psychosocial

Funded by Rally Foundation

• Children’s Research Institute at Children’s National Medical Center: Jennifer Levine, M.D., for Unpacking Insurance Coverage for Fertility Preservation (Consortium Grant)
• Emory University: Jordan Marchak, Ph.D., for Implementing Anxiety and Depression Screening for YA Survivors (Independent Investigator Grant)
• Seattle Children’s Hospital: Melissa Martos, M.D., for Diagnostic Communication and Outcomes by Language in Pediatric Oncology (Young Investigator Grant)