A Salk scientist’s story, and why science can’t wait

Your support helps our scientists move when progress cannot afford to slow.

Pancreatic cancer is devastating. It is often detected late, difficult to treat, and it moves fast. Families can go from ordinary life to crisis in an instant.

Científico de Salk Dannielle Engle, PhD, knows that reality personally.

When she was in college, she got the call no daughter ever wants to get. Her mom told her to come home because her dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Fourteen months later, he was gone.

Ten years later, her uncle was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. All that time had passed, and yet there were still no new treatments. That didn’t sit well with Dr. Engle. She wanted to do something about it.

Today, Dr. Engle’s lab at Salk is doing exactly that. She is asking foundational questions about pancreatic cancer biology—questions that can reveal what drives the disease, what we can measure earlier, and where new strategies might emerge. This is the earliest stage of discovery, when the work is most essential and least visible. It is also the stage where a single seed grant can make the difference between an idea staying on paper and becoming real, testable science.

That is why Salk’s donor-funded Innovation & Collaboration grants matter. These peer-reviewed seed awards fund the first experiments and the first data so scientists can move quickly, take smart risks, and bring complementary expertise together before traditional funding is ready. With your support, these grants fund the first experiments—the critical step that turns bold ideas into real discoveries.

Right now, more promising ideas are waiting than we can fund.

This is what Science Can’t Wait means at Salk: giving scientists the runway to begin now, so the breakthroughs of the future have a foundation to stand on.

Please make your gift to help fund the next Innovation or Collaboration Grant—and give scientists like Dr. Engle the chance to begin. Your support—at any level—helps move discovery forward and brings new possibilities within reach.

Science can’t wait. Please join us.

Upcoming Events

Science Can’t Wait: A Discovery Series
Webinar Series Part 3: Turning the Immune System Against Breast Cancer
Date: Wednesday, May 13
Hora: 10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET
Where: Zoom

Podcast Más Allá de los Laboratorios

Learn more about how these seed grants accelerate discovery.

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