The Lustgarten Foundation’s Robert F. Vizza Clinical Accelerator Initiative (CAI) funds highly collaborative, science-driven clinical studies in pancreatic cancer research, designed to accelerate the translation of laboratory discoveries into patient benefit. The CAI is a flagship Lustgarten program and represents a unique funding model: rather than a fixed award size, it supports carefully designed, typically smaller-scale studies that enable deep translational analyses, maximize learnings, and move the most promising science into the clinic. Proposals are reviewed by Lustgarten’s Translational Advisory Group (TAG), and only select applicants receive invitations to submit full grant applications. Letters of Intent are due May 31, 2026, via ProposalCentral. The Lustgarten Foundation is the world’s largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research, and the CAI is its primary mechanism for supporting science that has reached clinical readiness. Award notifications are expected by January 2027.
Eligibility Criteria:
- Principal Investigators conducting pancreatic cancer research with translational or clinical components
- Applicants must be at non-profit academic, medical, or research institutions
- Projects should be collaborative and team-based, ideally involving multiple investigators or disciplines
- Studies should demonstrate direct potential for patient benefit; purely basic science proposals without a clinical pathway are generally out of scope
- No explicit career stage restriction listed; proposals reviewed on scientific and translational merit
- International applicants may be eligible; consult the current LOI instructions for geographic requirements
Funding Details:
- Funding amount: Variable; determined by project scope and scientific merit (no fixed cap publicly listed)
- CAI studies are typically smaller in scale, focused on generating deep translational insights
- All submissions via ProposalCentral
- Multi-institutional and multi-investigator collaborations are preferred
Deadline:
- Letter of Intent (LOI): May 31, 2026
- Invitations for TAG Presentations: by July 2026
- Invitations for Grant Applications: by September 2026
- Award Notifications: by January 2027
Contact / Further Information:
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- Lustgarten Current Funding Opportunities
- Clinical Accelerator Initiative overview
- Jaclyn Lyman, Head of Clinical Research and Development: jaclyn.lyman@lustgarten.org
- Andrew Rakeman, Ph.D., VP, Research: andrew.rakeman@lustgarten.org
- Sejin Chung, Ph.D., Program Scientist: sejin.chung@lustgarten.org