For over 50 years, the Cancer Research Foundation has been funding important laboratory and clinical research projects in Chicago medical centers. Our funding has been earmarked for 1) Bernice Goldblatt Fellows, first-year students in the Cancer Biology M.D., Ph.D. graduate program at the University of Chicago Medical Center, 2) beginning scientists, post M.D./Ph.D. scientists who have never received cancer research funding and need the first "leg-up" in establishing independent research projects and 3) senior scientists whose projects are poised at the threshold of major breakthroughs.

The primary source of funding for doctors is the National Cancer Institute, one of the institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health. But approximately 75% of all approved National Cancer Institute research studies are left unfunded because there is not adequate financial support. This austerity is especially devastating to young researchers, those without previous grant history.