The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) has announced more than $34 million in research investments. 

The organization’s largest-ever single-year research investment includes support for its large-scale scientific and clinical initiatives and nine new grants. The awards will support PanCAN’s efforts to find an early detection strategy and accelerate treatment options for people with pancreatic cancer. As the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States, pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of just 12 percent.

This year, four scientists were selected to receive the PanCAN Career Development Award, which includes $250,000. The grant is designed to support junior scientists at academic and medical institutions who are early in their careers in establishing independent labs with a focus on pancreatic cancer research. PanCAN also is awarding one Catalyst Research Award of $225,000, one PanCAN Informatics and Data Science Research Fellowship of $177,000, and two PanCAN Fellowship Awards of $150,000 each funded by the Francois Wallace Monahan Fund. 

“This year marks 20 years of PanCAN awarding research grants—and over that time we have established ourselves as the catalyst for change in the pancreatic cancer community,” said PanCAN chief science officer Lynn Matrisian. “We fund bright and motivated scientists with innovative ideas and provide resources needed to attack this disease from every possible direction.”