The Conquering Cancer Initiative is a scientific and philanthropic initiative at the Salk Institute. Focusing on the hardest cancers to treat, Salk scientists are unlocking foundational knowledge that will help in treating all cancers. For more information, please contact Sandy Liarakos, Senior Director, External Relations/Cancer Center at sliarakos@salk.edu.

Salk Cancer Center Translational Fund
Advancing Science to Benefit Human Health

A definition of translational research is integrating fundamental scientific discoveries and patient-oriented research with a long-term aim of improving human health.

Background
The Salk Cancer Center, an NCI-Designated Basic Laboratory Cancer Center, strives to move research discoveries from the basic science laboratory into preclinical studies and advanced stages of development to help in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of human disease. Translating early discoveries into clinical trials is complex and requires significant funding and a longer timeframe to complete. For most philanthropic donors, private foundations, and public funding streams, this process is not a priority due to cost and the time to realize a benefit. The result is that many discoveries that can improve human health cannot receive the investments needed to see a beneficial outcome.

Advancing Salk science is our goal, and creating an opportunity to maximize the benefit to human health from the discoveries made in Salk labs is fundamental to our mission. Scientists from the Salk Cancer Center collaborate daily with clinicians at UC San Diego, City of Hope, and sister cancer centers worldwide. These collaborations allow Salk scientists to access patient samples and data for research purposes, design and run clinical trials to test the efficacy of potential treatments and advance successful discoveries into products or tools to improve patient care and health outcomes.

The Cancer Center Translational Fund
By creating the new Translational Fund through philanthropic support, the Salk Institute will be able to bolster a select number of outstanding projects and de-risk early discoveries towards commercial readiness and into valuable assets that will be partnered with industry. Through translational development, we expect to reach milestones that demonstrate the value or reduce the risk of Salk innovations to potential industry partners or investors that will help be the channels to advance Salk innovations into the marketplace. The Translation Fund will build on Salk’s continued success of bringing discoveries to benefit the public good ensuring and ensure we capture greater value for the Institute and our scientific teams with the added benefit of building a sustainable program of funding for future innovations.

Philanthropic support for the Translational Fund is an essential part of our mission to change the world for the better. By investing in the long-term scientific research conducted through the Cancer Center at the Salk Institute, you can help shape the future of human health. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Sandy Liarakos at sliarakos@salk.edu.

Sandy Liarakos, CFRE Senior Director of External Relations Phone: (858) 453-4100 x2067 E-mail: sliarakos@salk.edu   DONATE TO SALK CANCER CENTER

Links

Salk Cancer Center

Salk Cancer Research

Conquering Cancer Advisory Committee

Tim Schoen, Chair
Eve Benton
Ellen Chodorow
Scott Dailard
Daniel C. Lewis
Susan Pidgeon Mandel
Rita Rhu
Reuben Shaw, PhD
      Cancer Center Director
Sandy Liarakos, CFRE
      Senior Director, External Relations

Recent News

History of Salk Cancer Center

Did you know that Salk Cancer Center has been leading the way in conquering cancer since 1970? Find Out How »

Upcoming Seminars

Salk Cancer Center Trainee Research Seminar
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Title: Nucleotides in post-mitotic cells
Speaker: Jeffrey Jones, PhD (Gage Lab)
Title: Methods development for structural analysis of Nuclear Receptors and coregulatory complexes on chromatin
Speaker: Tim Strutzenberg, PhD (Lyumkis Lab)
Shaw Lab
Hosts: Rusty Gage, Dmitry Lyumkis and Leona Flores
Location: virtual

Contact: Leona Flores, PhD, lflores@salk.edu

Padres Pedal the Cause

Padres Pedal the Cause provides $2.4 million for cancer research »

Padres Pedal the Cause »

San Diego NCI Cancer Center Council combines local centers’ strengths »

Visit C3 Shared Resources »

Indivumed

The Salk Institute and Indivumed partner to advance global cancer research »

read more about the
Conquering Cancer initiative

Click here to download the pdf»