National Brain Tumor Society
/OVERVIEW: The National Brain Tumor Society generally works collaboratively with organizations pursuing research on specific types of brain tumors and cancers.
IP TAKE: This funder’s grantmaking landscape changes frequently, as it works collaboratively with other brain cancer organizations to fund and pursue research on specific types of tumors and cancers. It does not currently accept applications for funding but occasionally announces funding opportunities on its website. Check the society’s website periodically for updates.
PROFILE: The National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS) was established in 2008, but its history dates back to 1981, when a group of healthcare providers in San Francisco founded the National Brain Tumor Foundation. In 1989, after suffering the loss of her son Seth to a brain tumor, Bonnie Feldman, along with a group of like-minded people, established the Brain Tumor Society in Boston. In 2008, the two organizations joined up to create the NBTS. Now, the foundation takes “a multi-faceted and thoughtful approach to aggressively influence and fund strategic research and discovery, as well as advocate for public policy changes, in order to achieve the greatest impact, results, and progress for brain tumor patients.” The organization directly supports brain tumor research through its grantmaking but it also joins up with other funding organizations such as the National Cancer Institute and the American Association for Cancer Research to achieve its brain tumor goals.
NBTS several research initiatives:
The DNA Damage Response (DDR) Constortium, previously named the TDG Consortium, brings together a “diverse team of renowned adult and pediatric researchers to rapidly advance a new class of promising potential treatments.” Funding initiatives related to the DDR neuroscience research include:
Brain Tumor Investment Fund works towards bridging the “gap between scientific discovery at academic-based institutions and commercial product development.”
The Collaborative Ependymoma Research Network (CERN) Foundation, a designated program of the NBTS, works to “advance ependymoma research toward the development of new and better treatments for this rare brain and spinal cord tumor that impacts both adults and children.”
The Defeat GBM Research Collaborative “aims to double the five-year survival rate of glioblastoma multiforme,” a deadly form of brain cancer, by using shared data from the Cancer Genome Atlas and support from biopharmaceutical companies.
Defeat Pediatric Brain Tumors works toward the development of a standard of care for pediatric high-grade gliomas through clinical trials and drug discovery research.
The Community Research Fund currently runs subprograms for research on types of tumors that are of specific interest to donors, including Oligodendroglioma, Meningioma and Ependymoma.
Important Grants Details:
NBTS has given away between $1 and $1.5 million a year in recent years. Recent grants have ranged from $25,000 to $150,000, with an average grant size of about $50,000. Most of this funder’s grantees are individual researchers and/or research teams at leading universities, medical schools and institutes in the U.S., including the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Yale University, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and the Cleveland Clinic. For additional information about recent grantmaking, see the foundation’s annual report page.
The National Brain Tumor Society is not currently accepting applications for funding, but the organization encourages prospective grantseekers to check its research funding opportunities page periodically for updates. General inquiries may be submitted via the society’s contact page.
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