Jane Coffin Childs Fund Names 32 Postdoctoral Fellows for 2026, Committing Nearly $9 Million to Early-Career Biomedical Research
核心洞察
The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research has selected 32 postdoctoral fellows for its 2026 cohort, marking the third largest cohort in the Fund's nearly 90-year history.
Nearly $9 million in total funding has been committed to provide three years of stipends, supported by partners including Johnson & Johnson, Merck Research Laboratories (搜索), and the Robertson Foundation.
Awardees will pursue fundamental research across cancer (搜索), ALS (搜索), autoimmunity (搜索), and sepsis (搜索), with projects ranging from tumor nutrient mapping to host defense mechanisms against bacterial infection.
The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research (JCC Fund) has announced the selection of 32 outstanding postdoctoral fellows for its 2026 cohort, committing nearly $9 million to support three years of stipends for early-career scientists conducting fundamental biomedical research. The announcement was made from New Haven, Connecticut, on June 24, 2026.
The 2026 cohort represents the third largest group of fellows since the Fund's founding in 1937, reflecting an expansion made possible through partnerships with the Robertson Foundation, the Achelis & Bodman Foundation, Coefficient Giving, JJJ Charitable Foundation, The Hope Funds for Cancer (搜索) Research, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck Research Laboratories (搜索).
"We are thrilled to have our third largest cohort of fellows since our founding," said Anita Pepper, Ph.D., executive director of the JCC Fund. "We are grateful to our philanthropic partners, whose investments in JCC's tried-and-true model of catalyzing remarkable scientific careers alongside cutting-edge scientific impact make this expansion possible."
Rigorous Selection Process and Research Scope
Fellows were selected by the Board of Scientific Advisors from what the Fund described as an extraordinary applicant pool. Awardees were evaluated based on their research accomplishments to date, their proposed research plans, and the quality of their scientific environment and mentors.
The research pursued by the 2026 fellows spans a broad spectrum of human disease, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS (搜索)), autoimmunity (搜索), cancer (搜索), and sepsis (搜索). Project goals range from mapping how tumor cells access nutrients to inform anti-tumor growth therapies, to defining host cooperative defenses against bacterial infection to prevent sepsis.
"The 2026 JCC Fellows represent something we all need right now: scientists with the training, the drive, and the imagination to ask questions the rest of us haven't thought to ask yet," said Sue Biggins, Ph.D., chair of the JCC Fund's Board of Scientific Advisors. "This recognition honors their exceptional graduate work — and makes a bet on the breakthroughs still to come. At a difficult moment for science, it is exciting to celebrate this cohort and invest in our future."
Biggins, an HHMI Investigator and Director of the Basic Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer (搜索) Center in Seattle, is herself a former JCC Fund Fellow, underscoring the program's track record of identifying and nurturing scientific talent.
Legacy and Future Directions
The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research was established by the Childs Family in 1937 to honor the memory of Jane Coffin Childs. Originally founded with the purpose of supporting research into the causes and treatment of cancer (搜索), the Fund's mission has since broadened to encompass fundamental scientific research that advances understanding of the causes, treatments, and cures for human disease.
For nearly ninety years, the JCC Fund has maintained its commitment to funding early-career researchers, advancing pioneering science by backing postdoctoral fellows conducting fundamental research. The next round of applications for the 2027 cohort will open in October 2026.