We are the research funding arm of the American Cancer Society (ACS). Our grants fund
high impact and innovative cancer research conducted by hundreds of promising scientists and health care professionals—primarily early in their careers—at institutions across the United States.
All American Cancer Society (ACS) research programs include discovery research. The distinct mandate of the Extramural Discovery Science (EDS) team is to review and fund research performed at eligible US research institutions external (extramural) to ACS that can help cancer patients and their families.
The primary focus of the EDS department is to identify and invest in the most creative early-career investigators across the country.
We support the investigators who are doing the most innovative cancer discovery research by using a rigorous, independent, anonymous, and highly competitive peer review process.
(Advancing Health Equity and Addressing Disparities)
We are committed to maintaining a cancer research portfolio that includes any type of cancer, spans the cancer research continuum, and is aligned with our research priorities.
Our priority focus on health equity places special emphasis on addressing the social determinants of health that drive cancer health disparities and funding innovative solution-based health equity research.
We strongly encourage all ACS grantees to share their data freely and rapidly with systems that are open to the public to maximize value to cancer patients.
In addition to our traditional extramural research grants program for independent investigators and mentored awards, our portfolio includes grants for institutions, professors, and requests for applications (RFAs) for featured funding opportunities. See our complete list of grants, and make sure to notice what's new and which grants have recently changed.
One opportunity that isn’t on that list are the TheoryLab Collaborative (TLC) grants, which are selectively open to teams of 2 investigators who are active on ACS TheoryLab. TheoryLab is the online research community for scientists and clinical professionals who have a current or previous relationship with ACS as a grant recipient, mentor, peer reviewer, staff researcher, or adviser.
The funds that we use to support research grants are possible because of generous donations to the ACS. See our current research investments.
Go to Research Highlights.
The Extramural Discovery Science (EDS) team facilitates the evaluation of grant applications by external and independent reviewers and manages the grant portfolios, providing appropriate oversight and stewardship of donors’ investments in cancer research.
Our research goal is simple — find answers that help save lives from cancer. Our strategy for funding research is just as straightforward — fund the most innovative cancer research. In fact, we've helped make possible many of the major cancer research breakthroughs since 1946. Our research programs include:
Based on the research topic, scientific directors in the Extramural Discovery Science group assign each grant application to the appropriate peer review committee for an extensive and highly competitive scientific peer review, thus ensuring that we continue to invest in a broad portfolio of innovative and exciting cancer research.
As the nation's largest private, not-for-profit source of funds for scientists studying cancer, the American Cancer Society remains committed to funding investigator-initiated research across the cancer continuum.
Grant applications are ranked on the basis of merit by one of several discipline-specific research grant program Peer Review Committees. Each Peer Review Committee is composed of 12-25 scientific advisors, or peers, who are experts in their fields.
No single nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization in the US has invested more to find the causes and cures of cancer than the American Cancer Society (ACS). We fund research on all cancers using the widest possible range of scientific approaches to answer the most critical questions.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) Research Professor and Clinical Research Professor Awards are the most prestigious grants made by our national program.
These awards are given to full professors who have made seminal contributions to cancer research that have changed the direction of the research enterprise or dramatically altered our view of the disease. The awards are intended to provide preeminent cancer researchers with flexibility to investigate innovative avenues of study.
This conference boosts today's ACS-funded, early-career cancer researchers to be tomorrow's cancer research leaders by bringing together ACS-funded postdoctoral fellows, Clinician-Scientist Development Grant recipients, and ACS Professors (Clinical Research and Research Professor Awardees).
The American Cancer Society is honored to have given funding to 50 investigators who also won the Nobel Prize, considered the highest accolade any scientist can receive. This is a tribute to the Society’s Research program and the strength of its peer-review process.
TheoryLab is a dynamic virtual community driven by two guiding principles – creativity and innovation – that will inspire transdisciplinary collaborations to define and investigate the most exciting cancer research opportunities. This exclusive community of ACS research stakeholders invites participation by scientists, clinicians, and health professionals with expertise that spans the entire spectrum of cancer research.
I was on the verge of shutting down my laboratory. In a career-changing move for me, the American Cancer Society funded my first grant.