Speed of Light – The ASTRO Foundation Awards $2.4 Million to Accelerate Radiation Medicine Research
核心洞察
Speed of Light – The ASTRO Foundation (搜索) announced $2.4 million in new research grants supporting 14 scientists working to advance patient care in radiation medicine.
The 2026 awards are the first annual grants since ASTRO relaunched its foundation as Speed of Light, with a renewed focus on accelerating research and strengthening the radiation oncology workforce.
Grants are made possible through partnerships with leading cancer research organizations, including the American Cancer Society, AAPM, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (搜索), LUNGevity Foundation, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation (搜索).
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (搜索) (ASTRO) and Speed of Light – The ASTRO Foundation (搜索) announced $2.4 million in new research grants for 14 scientists working to advance patient care in radiation medicine. The 2026 awards are the first annual grants announced since ASTRO relaunched its foundation as Speed of Light earlier this year, with a renewed focus on accelerating research and strengthening the radiation oncology workforce.
The grants are made possible by donor support and partnerships with leading cancer research organizations, including the American Cancer Society (ACS), the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (搜索) (AAPM), the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (搜索) (BCRF), the LUNGevity Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation (搜索) (PCF).
"ASTRO and its nonprofit Foundation are committed to fostering progress in radiation medicine by investing in innovative research and the people driving it," said Vivek S. Kavadi, MD, MBA, FASTRO, CEO of ASTRO. "These awards come at a pivotal moment for the field, as scientific advances in radiation oncology are expanding even as research funding becomes more constrained. By supporting promising investigators, we can speed the translation of new discoveries into better treatments and cures for patients."
Since 2013, ASTRO and its Foundation, in collaboration with research partners, have awarded $15.8 million to more than 150 research teams. These investigators have subsequently attracted more than $90 million in follow-on funding, extending the impact of the combined investment.
2026 Grant Recipients
The 2026 awards span a range of radiation oncology research areas, from biomarker discovery and immunotherapy combinations to FLASH radiotherapy and CAR-T cell therapy.
ASTRO-ACS Dr. Felix Feng Clinician Scientist Development Grant (in partnership with the American Cancer Society) was awarded to Jie Deng, MD, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, for a project activating lymph node immunity to enhance radiation therapy.
ASTRO-ACS Clinician Scientist Development Grant (in partnership with the American Cancer Society) went to David D. Yang, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Mass General Brigham, for advancing biomarker discovery in prostate cancer (搜索) through computer vision-driven profiling of tumor and microenvironmental heterogeneity.
ASTRO Residents/Fellows in Radiation Oncology Seed Grants were awarded to Reza Djavadian, MD, PhD, of The University of Alabama at Birmingham, for precision identification and targeting of radiotherapy-resistance in oral squamous cell carcinoma (搜索), and to Akshat Patel, MD, of Mass General Brigham, for studying long-term outcomes and integrated tumor–immune molecular correlates following neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX and chemoradiation for esophagogastric cancer (搜索).
ASTRO-AAPM Physics Residents/Postdoctoral Fellows Seed Grants (in partnership with the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (搜索)) were awarded to Chloe Min Seo Choi, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, for multi-institution validation of a pretrained vision-language prediction model for thoracic radiation-induced toxicity, and to Hajar Moradmand, PhD, of Georgetown University, for integrated imaging and multi-omics biomarkers characterizing biological responses to FLASH proton radiotherapy.
ASTRO-BCRF Emerging Investigator Award (in partnership with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (搜索)) was awarded to Chidinma Anakwenze, MD, MPH, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, for a project on low-dose radiotherapy to preserve immunotherapy delivery in breast cancer (搜索) patients at high risk for immune-mediated arthritis (PRAISE-BC).
ASTRO-LUNGevity Residents/Fellows in Radiation Oncology Seed Grant (in partnership with the LUNGevity Foundation) was awarded to Elio Adib, MD, of Mass General Brigham, for evolutionary single-nucleus profiling of multifocal lung adenocarcinoma (搜索) to guide treatment strategies.
ASTRO-PCF Young Investigator Award (in partnership with the Prostate Cancer Foundation (搜索)) was awarded to Luca Valle, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles and Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System, for validation of a DNA-based genomic classifier for prediction of metastasis-directed radiotherapy response in oligometastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (搜索) and prognosis of high-risk localized prostate cancer.
James D. Cox Resident Research Awards were awarded to Meghana Pagadala, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, for decoding the spatial immune microenvironment of brain metastases (搜索), and to Yorleny Vicioso Mora, MD, PhD, of Duke University School of Medicine, for utilizing radiation to induce a novel target for CAR-T cell therapy.
Innovation Awards to Optimize Combination Radiation Therapy and Immunotherapy were awarded to Yvonne Mowery, MD, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, for deciphering the impact of RT/ICI sequencing on immune dynamics and response, and to Sabrina Campelo, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, for targeted immunomodulation in PDAC by combining proton radiation and H-FIRE.
A DNA-Based Genomic Classifier for Prostate Cancer
Among the funded projects, the Prostate Cancer Foundation (搜索) highlighted the work of Luca Valle, MD, recipient of the 2026 ASTRO-PCF Young Investigator Award. Dr. Valle's research validates a DNA-based genomic classifier to help predict how patients with oligometastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (搜索) respond to metastasis-directed radiotherapy, and to better assess prognosis in high-risk localized disease.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (搜索) described this as "exactly the kind of early-career research PCF is proud to help fund," underscoring the translational potential of genomic classifiers to guide radiation treatment decisions in prostate cancer (搜索).