Cancer Research Institute, Inc.

Over the next five years, the Cancer Research Institute will aim to:
(a) bring increasingly effective cancer immunotherapies to more cancer patient populations;
(b) expand awareness among patients, caregivers, and health care professionals of the power of cancer immunotherapy and its significant potential to slow or halt tumor growth, delay or prevent cancer recurrence, and extend patient lives, including members of underrepresented minority communities including Black, Hispanic and Latino/Latina, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Indigenous populations;
(c) grow the general public's awareness of the revolution in cancer treatment and the need to continue funding critical research in order to optimize immunotherapy for more groups of cancer patients;

CRI will achieve its goals through:
(a) expanding the field's knowledge by funding laboratory research in immunology and tumor immunology at universities and medical centers around the globe;
(b) channeling new incremental funds into our translational and clinical research programs, which aim to test and optimize cancer immunotherapies;
(c) forging new collaborations with more pharmaceutical and biotech industry partners as well as nonprofit partners in order to gain access to highly promising immunotherapies and test them in our international clinical trials network;
(d) launching a new campaign targeting cancer patients and caregivers designed to educate these groups on cancer immunotherapy, connect them with one another to exchange experiences and knowledge, and motivate them to ask their oncologists about immunotherapy options when appropriate;
(e) growing our reach and impact in underrepresented communities of color including Black, Latino/Latina, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous populations through (1) creation of funding opportunities for predoctoral students and young scientists from these communities interested in pursuing careers in immunology and tumor immunology; (2) translation of CRI's cancer immunotherapy information pages and resources into Spanish; (3) launch of an all Spanish-language Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit in Fall 2021 featuring Spanish-speaking immunotherapy experts and cancer patients and addressing health care disparities affecting this community.

The Cancer Research Institute is uniquely positioned to carry out the strategies above.
(a) Our longstanding postdoctoral fellowship program ensures a steady stream of intellectual talent to drive the field’s progress. Fellows ask fundamental questions about the immune system and its relationship to cancer, gaining new knowledge that fuels translational and clinical application.
(b) Through our Clinic and Laboratory Integration and Clinical Accelerator programs, we accelerate clinically-relevant discovery and optimization of immunotherapy in a wide variety of cancer types.
(d) As cancer immunotherapy enters the mainstream of treatment for more types of cancer, the need for trusted information about the available treatment options, how they work, and their potential side effects grows. Our website and offline events for patients and caregivers helps educate the public about this new approach to cancer treatment.

In the 70 years since CRI's founding, our scientists have made significant progress in advancing our understanding of the immune system and its response to cancer. This knowledge has resulted in game-changing treatments that harness the immune system's power to conquer cancer and save lives.

CRI scientists have laid a solid foundation of insights that have spurred the technological advances that make possible today's medical advances in cancer immunotherapy. The face of cancer treatment is changing, and the disease will soon become one that is manageable and in some cases curable rather than deadly.

As we look to the decade ahead, the Cancer Research Institute will continue to lead the field through its ability to establish unique, philanthropy-based partnerships between nonprofit and for-profit entities engaged in cancer immunotherapy research and development.

CRI will also continue to look for opportunities to address disparities in health equity for cancer patients from underrepresented minority communities and funding and training opportunities for individuals from these communities working to pursue careers as scientists in immunology and tumor immunology.