Research

Since its establishment, the Israel Cancer Association (ICA) has played an important and active role in supporting research of cancerous illnesses.  Research is vital for keeping pace with and adding to the general reservoir of knowledge,  the building blocks of important breakthroughs. New treatments, such as bone marrow transplants, would not be possible without the backup of on-going related research. Today's research into molecular biology and genetic engineering is on the threshold of tomorrow's treatments.

ICA promotes research to understand better the etiology of disease and to improve the means of mitigating it through basic, clinical, translational, epidemiological and psycho-oncological research. Dozens of grants and fellowships are distributed each year for research on topics from epidemiology, basic research and clinical research to psycho-social factors.

Each year the Israel Cancer Association receives approx. 120 new research proposals from which the Association awards 40 new research grants to researchers and doctors from all the research and medical authorities in Israel. The finest researchers of the country form the ICA research committee appoint at least 2 external reviewers who examine and assess each and every request according to its importance, level of excellence, originality, relevance to promoting cancer research in Israel and the world, and the researcher's ability to carry out the research.

The grant for the first year ranges from $22,000-$52,000 with an option to extend for a further year. After grading all proposals, the committee members decide on the exact amount, according to the needs of the research, the rating awarded to the proposal etc.

To enable researchers to start executing their research, the ICA transfers the amount of the grant to the researcher from its general budget, and meanwhile looks for sources of funding for those researches deemed worthy of funding.

A list of approved research projects is published each year in the annual report, of ICA,  in Hebrew and in English, crediting the donor. According to an agreement we have obtained, none of the institutions set off their overhead costs against the budgets received from the ICA.

ICA has worked to establish national clinical protocols, while assisting the Ministry of Health in the creation of a national cancer registry and a separate registry for children with cancer.
These valuable resources trace the prevalence and incidence of cancer in Israel, providing critical epidemiological information.

For many years, the ICA has sponsored the implementation of a national treatment protocol for pediatric leukemia.
This important protocol brought an end to the gaps once noted between the cure rates among Jewish and Arab children and between children treated in different hospitals. To these efforts, we have recently granted  funding for other national protocols for children and for multi-center research in the genetic testing of breast and ovarian cancer, which without a doubt will have significant bearing on future treatment and prevention strategies.

The ICA aids in the finance of the consortium of genetics of breast and ovarian cancer and its impact on the risk of a specific malignancy in BRCA1 or BRCA2 carriers. As a result of this research project extensive coverage of the study was published in the scientific journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Since cancer knows no geographical boundaries every research breakthrough made is applied both in Israel and worldwide. Thanks to these research grants achievements, universal implementations have been attained in the promotion of the fight against cancer.