A Commitment to Early-Stage Investigators and Community Engagement

October 1, 2024, by Dr. Diane Palmieri, Director, Center for Research Strategy

Every year, as directed by the National Cancer Act of 1971, NCI presents to the President and Congress a proposal providing our professional estimate of the funding needed to support the National Cancer Program and make the most rapid progress against cancer. While the fiscal year (FY) 2024 and 2025 federal agency budgets were subject to statutory budget caps, this year’s NCI Annual Plan and Professional Judgment Budget Proposal presents an opportunity to realize growth-oriented funding of the cancer research enterprise in FY26. This proposed budget provides a sensible request to support the cancer research community at a time when the opportunities are greater than ever before. It will enable NCI to take advantage of those opportunities and ultimately help all people live longer, healthier lives.

Through the nation’s investment in investigator-initiated and other research, scientists have made foundational discoveries resulting in groundbreaking advances against cancer. This year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first ever cellular therapy for a solid tumor for patients with advanced melanoma. Additionally, researchers are testing preventive cancer vaccines in first-of-their-kind clinical studies aimed at reducing cancer occurrence for people with an inherited genetic condition that dramatically increases their risk for certain colorectal and other cancers. These are just two examples of the transformation occurring in cancer treatment—bringing new therapies to cancers previously considered difficult to treat, like melanoma, but also endometrial cancer, sarcomas, and more.

These achievements have deep roots in decades of NCI research investments. NCI is the largest funder of cancer research in the world, and a stagnant budget threatens the pace of progress. Without adequate levels of support, far too many great ideas go unfunded and potential cancer prevention, detection, and treatment advances remain unrealized. In addition, we run the risk of losing ground in leading and driving science forward, at a time when investments have never had a greater return. Fully funding cancer research in FY26 is an opportunity to ensure we continue to make steady progress against cancer.

Robust Support for the Next Generation of Cancer Researchers

A skilled and diverse workforce is critical to sustaining progress against cancer. It begins with training programs that connect with and build talent from all communities. A diverse cadre of early-stage investigators (ESIs) can bring innovative ideas and new perspectives to the forefront, driving science into unexplored areas with novel research objectives. Empowering our workforce is part of our mission. NCI is committed to supporting the next generation of independent cancer researchers, as reflected by maintaining the ESI payline in FY24 and the training budget, even within a tightly constrained budget.

However, with the opportunities ahead, we must do more than maintain our workforce—we need to expand to meet the growing needs of public and private sector research across the cancer continuum. The proposed budget would allow NCI to fund more ESIs and to grow our training portfolio to further infuse highly qualified and diverse investigators into cancer research. With this funding, we could support more people like Leeya Pinder, M.D., M.P.H., an ESI and Cancer Moonshot Scholar at the University of Cincinnati, who is profiled in the FY26 plan. Dr. Pinder studies cervical cancer prevention in low-resource settings. Her work, supported through an R37 MERIT Award, will inform best practices for treating cervical precancer using a self-administered medicine in women with and without HIV.

Community Engagement Across the Entire Cancer Research Continuum

Within the FY26 Annual Plan and Professional Judgment Budget Proposal, we highlight several timely scientific opportunities that a robust budget increase would allow NCI to pursue. It is timely to spotlight one opportunity: tackling early-onset cancers. The rate of early-onset cancer, often defined as cancer that is diagnosed in people between ages 18 and 49, has climbed by almost 80% since the 1990s. Addressing this emerging problem requires sustained investments across the entire cancer research continuum—from understanding why more young adults are being diagnosed with cancer, to developing interventions specific to early-onset cancers, and mitigating the unique challenges that young cancer survivors may face.

As Dr. Kimryn Rathmell emphasized in her FY26 Annual Plan Director’s Message, tackling early-onset cancers and other scientific opportunities requires NCI to engage every person living with or at risk for cancer. NCI’s nationwide research networks, including the National Clinical Trials Network and the NCI Community Oncology Research Program, make it possible for people across the country to participate in research. But we can and must do more to engage all people in cancer research.

The FY26 budget proposal emphasizes the impact of clinical studies through Justin’s story. Justin is a cancer survivor whose non-Hodgkin lymphoma proved to be resistant to four different treatments, until he joined an innovative NCI clinical study testing a new treatment combination. The five-drug therapy targets several biological features of cancers like his. After the very first round of treatment, Justin’s cancer shrank by 90%, and he remains cancer free more than 3 years later.

Advances that make stories like Justin’s possible represent the culmination of NCI-supported studies across NCI’s entire cancer research portfolio—from research on the biology of cancer and treatments that target a cancer’s vulnerabilities to studies on how best to deliver those treatments. Our ability to provide the kind of precision-based cancer care we have imagined for years is now within reach for many tumors. NCI’s integrated portfolio needs to be fully supported, including sustaining the workforce, research, and infrastructure that make it all possible to ensure that our discoveries reach the people who need them. Contraction in even one area when budgets are tight could disrupt progress across the rest of the cancer research ecosystem for years to come.

The bottom line: NCI’s FY26 Annual Plan and Professional Judgment Budget Proposal describes the necessary funding to make the progress against cancer that we all want to see. It emphasizes NCI’s strong support for early-stage investigators and community engagement to achieve the goal of ending cancer as we know it, for all people.