Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation Cancer Center at Illinois

Seed Grant Program

The Cancer Center at Illinois solicits interdisciplinary team research proposals to initiate new collaborations and enhance existing collaborations among faculty.

Download the 2026 RFP

About the Proposal

This seed grant program aims to enable faculty teams to:

  • Develop novel cancer-focused research ideas that require the involvement of multiple cancer investigators from different disciplines.
  • Formulate a hypothesis-driven or technology-focused research project that relates to one or, ideally, both of the CCIL research programs and their accompanying themes.
  • Collect preliminary data or other relevant information to support a feasible approach for grant proposals to an NCI-recognized funding agency.
  • Garner external funding for multi-investigator research projects using CCIL support as a catalyst.
  • Mentor the next generation of cancer researchers by providing students with hands-on opportunities to engage in research, foster their professional development, and prepare them for impactful careers in oncology and related fields.

Eligibility

  • Principal Investigator: Each proposal will identify a lead principal investigator (PI) who assumes organizational leadership for the project. Priority will be given to projects for which PIs are existing CCIL members. Preference will be given to investigators who have not previously received substantial CCIL research support funding.
  • Team Members: At least two of the team members must be current CCIL members. Proposals must reflect the substantive involvement of multiple investigators from different scientific disciplines or academic departments. Projects should demonstrate substantive collaboration between CCIL members and must specifically address CCIL research program strategic themes. Applicants are strongly encouraged to include faculty at the Assistant Professor rank on their teams. 

Additional eligibility criteria can be found in the full Seed Grant 2026 RFP.

Funding

Each research team may submit proposals for up to $200,000 for up to a two-year period. Funds will be disbursed up to $100,000 in funding for the first year and up to $100,000 in support for second year.

Previous Projects

2025

  • Investigating Cachexia-Induced Muscle Denervation and Tumor-Muscle Crosstalk Using an Integrated Neuromuscular-Tumor Microenvironment-on-a-Chip (NeuM-TMOC)
    • Research Team: Hyunjoon Kong (PI) and Jonathan Sweedler
  • Multimodal Imaging of Tumor Associate Macrophages in Metastatic Breast Cancer
    • Research Team: Andrew Smith (PI), Erik Nelson, and Wawrzyniec Dobrucki
  • Targeting Protein Homeostasis for Cancer Therapy
    • Research Team: Hong Jin (PI), Nicholas Wu, and Boxuan Zhao
  • Towards AI-Powered Multiplexed MRI for Brain Tumor Imaging
    • Research Team: Zhi-Pei Liang (PI), Minh Do, Wael Mostafa, and Yudu Li

2024

  • Sister-Pore-Repair Dissects DNA Repair Pathways and Hotspot Distribution Among Different Cancers and Treatments
    • Research Team: Huanyu Qiao (PI), Lin-Feng Chen, Wenan Qiang, and Kimberly Selting
  • Multiscale High-Content Cancer Imaging to Identify Molecular Signatures in Drug-Tolerant Cancer Cells
    • Research Team: Yang Liu (PI), Hongqiang Ma, and Chitra Subramanian
  • A High Throughput Stiffness Sensor for Testing Efficacy of Chemo and CAR-T Cell Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer
    • Research Team: Taher Saif (PI) and Hua Wang
  • Imaging Intratumoral Heterogeneity in Breast Cancer Cells Across Epithelial to Mesenchymal Phenotypes by Targeting Submicron Organelle Specific Small-Molecule Chemical Landscape
    • Research Team: Ashok Samuel (PI), Susan Leggett, and Jonathan Sweedler
  • Reprogram the Tumor Microenvironment by Targeting Brd4 to Improve Cancer Immunotherapy
    • Research Team: Lin-Feng Chen, Erik Nelson, Andrew Smith, and Hua Wang
  • Targeting Macrophage Trem2 with AAVs using uPAR as Homing Target for Glioblastoma Gene Therapy
    • Research Team: Samy Meroueh, Timothy Fan, and Thomas Gaj

2023

  • Targeting Membrane Phospholipid Remodeling As a Novel Therapy for Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis-Associated Hepatocellular Carcinoma
    • Research Team: Bo Wang (PI) and David Sarlah
  • Identification of Potential Diagnostic and Therapeutic Targets of Iron Metabolism in Head and Neck Cancer
    • Research Team: Chitra Subramanian (PI), Mark Cohen, Zeynep Madak-Erdogan
  • Imaging-Based Biomarkers to Predict Glioma Immunotherapy Response
    • Research Team: Edward Roy (PI), Wawrzyniec Dobrucki, David Kranz, Fan Lam, and Andrew Smith, Professor

2022

  • A Molecular Lego Kit for Kinase Inhibitors
    • Research Team: Martin Burke (PI) and Emad Tajkhorshid
  • Targeting the Bidirectional Crosstalk Between Gut Microbial Metabolism and Bile Acids to Alleviate Intestinal and Liver Tumorigenesis
    • Research Team: Christopher Gaulke (PI), Sayeepriyadarshini Anakk, Collin Kieffer, and Bo Wang, Assistant Professor
  • Engineering Mechanical and Chemical Gradients to Control Cancer Cell Metastasis
    • Research Team: Catherine Murphy (PI) and Taher Saif
  • Versatile Redox Detection of a-Glycosylated Proteins in Blood, a Potential Universal Biomarker for Robust Cancer Detection
    • Research Team: Joaquin Rodriguez Lopez (PI), Brian Cunningham, Professor, and Zeynep Madak-Erdogan
  • Molecular Dynamics Modeling of Target Recycling Amplification for Ultrasensitive Detection of RNA-based Cancer Biomarkers
    • Research Team: Emad Tajkhorshid (PI), and Brian Cunningham
  • Optogenetic Modulation of the Tumor Microenvironment to Improve Cancer Immunotherapy
    • Research Team: Kai Zhang (PI) and Erik Nelson

2021

  • Delineating the Role of Orc6 in Genome Surveillance and Cancer Progression
    • Research Team: Supriya Prasanth (PI) and Satish K. Nair
  • FORce Control of Cancer Tumor μEnvironment (FORCE)
    • Research Team: M. Taher Saif (PI), Kimberly Selting, Kannanganattu V. Prasanth, and Hyunjoon Kong
  • High-Resolution Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging for Adaptive Glioblastoma Multiforme Patient Treatment
    • Research Team: Hua Li (PI), Fan Lam, Zhi-Pei Liang, Mark Anastasio, Paul Arnold, and Daniel Barnett, Carle Cancer Institute
  • Lipid Droplet Packing: A New Target to Interfere with the Progress of Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma
    • Research Team: Cecilia Leal (PI) and Sayee Anakk
  • Multi-Shape 3D Hanging Drop Array for Cancer Drug-screening
    • Research Team: Rashid Bashir (PI), Panagiotis Z. Anastasiadis, George Vasmatzis, Andrew Smith, Joon Kong, and Jie Chen
  • Quantitative Ultrasound for Detection of Lymph Node Metastasis from Oral Melanoma & to Document Tumor Response to Stereotactic Radiosurgery in Dogs as a Large Animal Model of Metastatic Cancer
    • Research Team: Kimberly Selting (PI), Audrey Billhymer, Michael Oelze, and Rita Miller
  • Stable Therapeutic Antibody Expression for Cancer Immunotherapy by Liver-directed Gene Editing
    • Research Team: Shannon Sirk (PI), Thomas Gaj, Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, and Pablo Perez-Pinera
  • Workflows and Tools for Visualizing Tumor Phylogenies in Metastatic Breast Cancer
    • Research Team: Mohammed El-Kebir (PI), Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Charles Blatti, Colleen Bushell, Lisa Gatzke, and Matthew Berry
  • The Role of the Urinary Sterolbiome in Prostate Cancer Risk
    • Research Time: Jason Ridlon (PI)l, H. Rex Gaskins, Joseph Irudayaraj, and John Erdman

2020

  • Using Anticancer Drug-Induced Immune Cell Activation to Target Ovarian Cancer for Eradication
    • Research Team: David Shapiro (PI), Erik Nelson, and Georgina Cheng
  • Elucidating the Role of Minor Cannabinoids on Immune Cell Activation Involved in Lung Cancer Metastatic Progression
    • Research Team: David Sarlah (PI), Aditi Das, and Timothy Fan
  • Establishment of a Spatially Resolved Noncoding RNA-mRNA Interactome Map for Breast Cancer Progression
    • Research Team: Hee-Sun Han (PI), Saurabh Sinha, and Prasanth Kumar V. Kannanganattu

Have a question? Contact us at cancercenter@illinois.edu.