Innovation & Collaboration Program
The Lustgarten Foundation’s Innovation and Collaboration Program provides seed funding for investigators who have highly innovative research with significant potential to accelerate the mission to transform pancreatic cancer into a curable disease. Each recipient is awarded a one-year, $110,000 grant for their pancreatic cancer research.
REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS
- Applications must be submitted through ProposalCentral by January 5, 2026
- Applicants selected for funding will be notified by April, with the earliest anticipated start in June.
- Read the complete RFA Details for more information.
2025 Recipients
Ronald Parchem, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine, for his study “Mechanisms Driving Tumor Innervation in Pancreatic Cancer.”
Goal: Determine the relationship between tumor cells and neuronal cells during tumor development and in promoting tumor growth; identify potential new targets for interception and intervention
Massimiliano Mazzone, PhD, Group Leader at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology and Professor in the Department of Oncology at KU Leuven, for his study “Unraveling the role of P2Y6+ macrophages in PDAC liver metastasis.”
Goal: Identify and determine the function of macrophages in promoting metastasis; factors driving metastasis in PDAC remain largely unknown – potential to validate a new pathway to inhibit liver metastases
2024 Recipient
Linda Resar, MD, Professor of Medicine, Oncology, and Pathology, Johns Hopkins University for her study “Targeting HMGA1 Tumor-Stromal Signaling Networks in Pancreatic Cancer.”
2023 Recipients
Kacper Rogala, DPhil, MRes, Assistant Professor of Structural Biology and of Chemical and Systems Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, for his study “Establishing Choline Transport as Selective Vulnerability of Pancreatic Cancers.”
David Kashatus, PhD, Associate Professor, Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, University of Virginia School of Medicine, for his study “The Role of Lipid Droplets in Pancreatic Cancer Metastasis.”
2022 Recipients
Mandar Muzumdar, MD, Co-Director of Pancreas Program, Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yake Cancer Center, for his study “Dietary Oleic Acid Reprograms Pancreatic Lipid Metabolism to Drive Cancer Development.”
Andrew Lowy, MD, Director of Surgical Oncology at UC San Diego and Associate Director, Moores Cancer Center, for his study “Building on KRAS Inhibition in Pancreas Cancer: Defining Rational Pairings to Combat Resistance and Enhance Responses to Immunotherapy.”