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Outside the Box Grant in Childhood Cancer Research

Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research

The Collaborative invites applications for innovative research strategies that directly address pediatric, adolescent or young adult cancers through a novel idea built around one of the Focus Areas and the Priority Area outlined in Section II. These grants are designed to provide seed funding for a new idea that may not have preliminary data but for which a strong case can be made for the potential impact for children, adolescents and young adults battling cancer.

Focus and Priority Areas
The application must address one Focus Area and the Priority Area related to cancer in children (0-14), adolescents (15-19) and/or young adults (20-24):
Focus Areas:
• Leverage the use of artificial intelligence to advance the diagnosis, treatment or understanding of cancer in children, adolescents and young adults with a demonstrated potential for clinical translation.
• Advance efficiency, coordination and overall quality of cancer care to improve outcomes for children, adolescents and young adults as well as their families. Priority will be given to research that:

• Incorporates patient- and family-centered approaches to improve the experience and delivery of care across settings (inpatient, outpatient and virtual);
• Leverages health information technology, artificial intelligence or decision-support tools to enhance care coordination, resource utilization or treatment planning;
• Aims to improve clinical trials by addressing challenges unique to pediatric populations to increase accessibility, speed and scientific impact; or
• Aims to improve pediatric clinical trials by streamlining regulatory approvals.

Priority Area:
• A novel idea for innovative research that could lead to advanced studies, better delivery of treatment or clinical translation.
The following will not be reviewed:
• Grants that have no direct relevance to pediatric cancer nor fall within the scope of A Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards Program.
• Proposals for infrastructure programs.
• Incomplete applications and/or applications received after the deadline.

Award Information
Outside the Box Grants award up to $50,000 for one year of support. One-year grants will receive two installments, one every six months.

AI Based Application Success Predictor

✅ 1. Strict pediatric relevance

Rally is highly pediatric-specific.

Strong proposals:

focus on children or AYA oncology biology

justify why the target cannot be studied solely in adults

acknowledge unique pediatric tumor biology

Vague “oncology in general” = low competitiveness.

✅ 2. Clear translational trajectory

Funding tends to favor work that could:

guide therapy selection,

improve survival curves,

reduce treatment toxicity,

enable clinical trial readiness.

Purely descriptive molecular biology is weaker.

✅ 3. Rare cancers = prioritized

Higher award frequency in:

Ewing sarcoma

Neuroblastoma

Medulloblastoma

Osteosarcoma

Rhabdomyosarcoma

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)/DMG

Proposals that address rarity-associated resource scarcity score well.

✅ 4. Novel, innovative approaches

Consistently favored:

next-gen immunotherapies (CAR, BiTEs, NK)

genomics-driven vulnerability mapping

tumor microenvironment targeting

ex vivo drug screening platforms

resistance mechanism deconvolution

Incremental extensions do poorly.

✅ 5. Strong preliminary data

Even pilot-stage grants reward:

feasibility demonstration

target validation

early pharmacodynamic rationale

drug sensitivity assays

Preliminary animal or organoid data strengthen scoring.

✅ 6. Feasible, bounded aims

Rally grants are modest (~$50–$100k/yr). Past reviewers penalize:

multi-omics pipelines requiring major infrastructure

assay development from scratch

Scope realism is a key success factor.

✅ 7. Patient-impact language

Successful applicants clearly articulate:

survival gains,

toxicity mitigation,

reduced late effects,

QoL improvements.

Reviewers are advocacy- and family-informed.

✅ 8. Early-career support priority

Rally stands out for:

cultivating pediatric oncology independence

training pipeline reinforcement

Clear mentorship plans matter.

✅ 9. Consortia membership or collaborative context

Helpful signals:

COG participation

access to pediatric biospecimens

multi-institutional validation

Not required, but historically common.

✅ 10. Strong letters of institutional support

Look for commitments:

protected time

reagent availability

core facility access

biostatistics support

Generic letters are penalized.

🔬 Methodologies with high success density

Common among funded investigators:

PDX or PDO models

single-cell profiling

immune landscape characterization

drug repurposing screens

kinase dependency mapping

Techniques are hypothesis-driven, not fishing expeditions.

🚸 Special populations emphasized

Rally responds to:

relapsed/refractory disease

treatment-resistant clones

metastasis biology

long-term toxicities in survivors

Therapy de-escalation is increasingly favored.

🧠 Reviewer praise patterns

Recurring summary phrases include:

“Compelling translational rationale.”
“Appropriately powered pilot.”
“Promising investigator trajectory.”
“Access to relevant pediatric samples.”

📉 Common pitfalls

Predictors of rejection:
✘ extrapolated from adult oncology without pediatric justification
✘ unfocused aims (more than 2–3)
✘ lack of preliminary efficacy signal
✘ no path to clinical readiness
✘ unrealistic timelines

📊 Statistical expectations

Successful applications demonstrate:

feasible effect sizes,

clear endpoints,

biomarker stratification plans.

Hand-wavy statistical sections get flagged.

🧬 Biomarker work

Rally reviewers favor:

prognostic stratification tools,

actionable therapeutic biomarkers,

minimal residual disease (MRD).

Merely associative signatures are weaker.

🧵 Soft cultural heuristics

Patterns visible across years:

Patient narrative framing matters.

Justifying sample scarcity matters.

Clear line of sight to a future clinical trial matters.

🧾 Winning Aim Pattern

Most successful proposals follow:

Aim 1: Define/validate a targetable vulnerability in a pediatric tumor.
Aim 2: Test therapeutic perturbation in physiologically relevant models.
Aim 3 (optional): Biomarker strategy for clinical translation.

Two aims for early-career investigators often outperform three.

💵 Budget realism

High-yield budget elements:

animal models

sequencing validation

reagents (antibodies, inhibitors)

core facility charges

Low-yield:

personnel bloat

large capital purchase requests

🧬 Organizational ethos

Rally values:

hope messaging

urgency

community involvement in research direction

Aligning your narrative with this ethos adds intangible advantage.

🏆 Condensed Success Fingerprint

A competitive Rally proposal is:

✅ pediatric-specific
✅ clinically translatable
✅ supported by preliminary data
✅ small-grant feasible
✅ focused on relapse/resistance/toxicity
✅ linked to a future trial or IND trajectory

Weak proposals are:

✘ mechanistically interesting but clinically distant
✘ adult-only tumor biology extended to children without justification
✘ under-mentored
✘ over-ambitious

Specialties

Cancer

Pediatrics

Oncology

Eligibility Requirements

• Applicants conducting pediatric cancer research as a clinical fellow in pediatric hematology/oncology and/or postdoctoral research fellow. Applicants must hold at least an M.D., D.O., Pharm.D. or Ph.D. degree and be conducting research after the first year of their fellowship.
• Applicants with all academic ranks, Instructor to Professor, and research scientists holding at least an M.D., D.O., Pharm.D. and/or Ph.D. degree may apply.
On the application Face Page, the applicant will identify themselves as a Young Investigator or an Independent Investigator. Rally defines young investigators as principal investigators no more than five years post fellowship and independent investigators as principal investigators more than five years post fellowship.
• Applicants do not need to be U.S. citizens or located at a U.S. institution.
• The applicant’s institution may be a hospital, university or private lab.

Sponsor Details

Sponsor Institute/Organizations: Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research

Sponsor Type: Corporate/Non-Profit

Address: 5775 Glenridge Drive Building B, Suite 370 Atlanta, GA 30328

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