AACR Announces Recipients of AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants 2026

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) announced a major new funding initiative during the Opening Ceremony of the AACR Annual Meeting 2026 in San Diego. Through its Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants, AACR will support 15 investigators with $1 million each over three years, making this the largest grant program in the organization’s history.

The awards were given to nine early-stage investigators and six mid-career investigators whose projects were selected for their scientific merit and promise. Altogether, the initiative represents a $15 million investment aimed at helping researchers build innovative programs that can advance cancer biology, translational science, and patient care.

Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), Chief Executive Officer of AACR, said the program reflects the need to strengthen the scientific workforce in order to address future challenges in cancer incidence and mortality. She noted that many of the awardees are at critical stages in their careers and that this level of support can help them pursue highly creative work with the potential to change the field.

A Major Investment Backed by Pfizer

The funding for the Trailblazer grants was made possible through Pfizer’s donation of its royalties from U.S. sales of Bavencio® (avelumab) to AACR, first announced in December 2023. AACR conducted the application review and selection process independently, while the donated funding created the foundation for this new program.

Jeff Legos, Chief Oncology Officer at Pfizer, said the company believes progress in cancer care starts with investing in scientists and physicians whose ideas can reshape patient outcomes. The partnership between AACR and Pfizer reflects a shared interest in supporting bold research with long-term clinical relevance.

What makes this initiative especially notable is not only its size, but also its structure. By distributing the grants over three years, the program gives investigators meaningful time and resources to develop emerging ideas rather than limiting them to short-term projects.

Early-Stage Investigators

Images	Name
	Ana Luísa Correia, PhD Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal Neuro-immune regulation of metastatic breast cancer dormancy
	Karen Dixon, Ph University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Identifying and disrupting neuro-immune circuits in lung cancer
	Justin Milner, PhD The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Engineering synthetic T-cell states to treat solid cancers
	Nathan Parker, MPH, PhD Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida Exercise prehabilitation to improve chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy outcomes
	Theodore Roth, MD, PhD Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California Universal discovery of patient-specific cellular immunotherapies
	Jonathan Tsai, MD, PhD Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts Therapeutic alteration of androgen receptor chromatin dynamics
	Jessalyn Ubellacker, PhD, MD Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts Inducing lipid peroxidation in lymph node cancer cells to promote systemic immunogenicity
	Natalie Vokes, MD The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas Dissecting mechanisms of therapeutic resistance and vulnerabilities in CDKN2A/MTAP-deleted non-small cell lung cancer
	Samir Zaidi, MD, PhD Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut Mechanisms of cellular plasticity in neuroendocrine prostate cancer initiation

Mid-Career Investigators

Images	Name
	Effie Apostolou, PhD Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York Targeting three-dimensional regulatory nodes to rewire cancer programs
	Adrienne Boire, MD, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York Cancer communication across blood-brain barriers
	Carla Chibwesha, MD, MSc The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Improving cervical precancer treatment outcomes in women with HIV
	Yifat Merbl, PhD Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Induced SUMOylation as a novel approach for cancer treatment
	Aaron Newman, PhD Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California Real-time profiling of tumor microenvironment dynamics to decode immunotherapy response in melanoma
	Tuomas Tammela, MD, PhD Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York Interrogating epithelial injury-associated tissue programs in cancer plasticity

Why the Trailblazer Grants Matter

The significance of this announcement goes beyond the number of awards. Research funding often determines whether promising ideas can move from concept to discovery, especially for investigators who are still building independent programs or expanding into new scientific directions. Programs like this create space for ambitious work that may not always fit into more traditional funding models.

AACR said the goal of the Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants is to support paradigm-shifting research that can improve understanding of cancer biology, strengthen translational science, and ultimately lead to better outcomes for patients. In that sense, the program is not only a financial investment, but also a statement about where the future of cancer research should be directed.

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Written by Nare Hovhannisyan,MD