Children’s Tumor Foundation: Young Investigator Award (YIA) Grant

The Children’s Tumor Foundation's Young Investigator Award (YIA) supports early career researchers in neurofibromatosis (NF) by providing two years of salary support. This award program has successfully helped many researchers secure larger grants and advance their careers in the NF research community, fostering groundbreaking discoveries and publications.

The Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF), established in 1978 as the National Neurofibromatosis Foundation, is a non-profit organization committed to promoting research and identifying effective therapies for neurofibromatosis (NF) and to improving the lives of those living with this disease. NF includes neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and all types of schwannomatosis (SWN), including NF2 related schwannomatosis (NF2-SWN), formerly known as neurofibromatosis type 2. Since its inception, CTF has committed over $50 million to research grants and initiatives, supporting scientists around the world to conduct groundbreaking NF research.
The Young Investigator Award is CTF’s longest running award program, and provides two-year salary support to early career NF researchers, such as senior doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers, to help them get established as independent NF investigators. Since its inception, several YIAs have made groundbreaking research findings and notable publications through this program, and many have advanced to become leaders in the NF research and clinical communities. The main function of the YIA program has been to serve as a ‘seeding mechanism’ for researchers to secure larger grants, such as from the NIH and CDMRP NFRP.