ACS Research Priority Areas

The American Cancer Society (ACS) has established these 6 areas to prioritize the research we fund to help advance the mission. All research proposals (except Institutional Research Grants, Mission Boost Grants, and Professor grants) must fall into at least 1 of these 6 priority areas: 

• Etiology (causes of cancer)
• Obesity/Healty Eating and Active Living (HEAL)
• Screening and Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Survivorship
• Health Equity Across the Cancer Continuum

For examples of recent awards in these priority areas, see this press release.

Etiology (Causes of Cancer)

The ACS supports research into the causes of cancer and the incidence, initiation, and biology of early-onset cancers.

To accelerate progress in understanding the causes of cancer, this priority area supports research to identify early, inherited, somatic, molecular, behavioral, environmental, and societal causes and risk factors that impact cancer incidence, progression, and mortality. 

Research in this priority area could include studying: 

• Fundamental cellular processes to better understand carcinogenesis, including DNA damage, hypoxia (too little oxygen), and extracellular matrix remodeling. 
• New models of cancer initiation to understand the intersection of genetics and exposures to carcinogens.
• Factors that contribute to tumor evolution, including the adaptive immune system and its interplay with innate responses.
• Target genes involved in cancer to better identify and characterize them, using global-scale genomic and epigenomic approaches.

Obesity/Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) 

The ACS supports research on metabolism, inflammation, nutrition, and physical activity to better understand each factor’s role in cancer risk, initiation, treatment, progression, and survivorship. 

Screening and Diagnosis

The ACS supports research on cancer screening and early detection, diagnostics, and prognostics. We encourage studies focused on high-mortality cancers and major cancer types that lack screening tests.

Studies can span the research continuum (i.e., from molecular to population-based). Research in this priority area could include studying:

Treatment 

The ACS supports research to develop new cancer treatments, targets, and systems to monitor and treat resistant diseases and to enhance opportunities in immunotherapy and precision medicine. 

To accelerate progress in cancer treatment, this priority area supports research to improve models and test interventions for prevention, tumor dormancy, recurrence,  resistance, and metastasis. 

This priority area will further generate predictive preclinical models to streamline clinical testing of combination or multi-modal therapies by funding research on tumor microenvironment, heterogeneity, microbiome, and immune escape. 

Research in this priority could aim to improve timely access to treatment, increase participation rates of diverse populations in clinical trials and advance our understanding of barriers to the receipt of timely and high-quality treatment. Research in this priority area could include studying:

• New agents, combinations, and approaches to continue to identify the most useful cancer therapies.
• Barriers and social determinants of health to develop interventions that reduce interference with cancer treatments.
• Resistance to treatment to develop systems that better predict resistance and monitor it.

Survivorship

Survivorship research focuses on improving the survivorship journey and quality of life for survivors and their caregivers, including emotional, financial, spiritual, and supportive services or care delivery, as well as communication research.  

Research may address access barriers to high-quality cancer care and health equity across the cancer continuum—screening and early detection, diagnosis, treatment, or palliative care and survivorship. Research in this priority area could include studying:

• The quality of care and quality of life for cancer survivors and caregivers. This could involve assessing survivor function as well as caregiver and survivor needs, improving communication and decision-making with health care professionals and caregivers, improving the effectiveness of care coordination, and integrating early primary and specialty palliative care into interventions that personalize and tailor care.
• New models of delivering care and interventions that include interdisciplinary approaches and economic evaluation, such as novel strategies for coordinating care between specialists and primary care providers, telehealth/virtual care, virtual reality, or artificial intelligence. 
• Improving risk-prediction models, tools, and standardization of real-world data to inform improvements in practice, public health, and public policy.    

Health Equity Across the Cancer Control Continuum  

The ACS believes that everyone should have a fair and just opportunity to prevent, find, treat, and survive cancer. Societal issues —such as poverty, education, social injustices, and unequal distribution of resources and power —underpin profound inequities. 

These macro-environmental conditions where people are born, grow, live, work, and age, along with the available systems supporting health are known as the social determinants of health (SDOH). The SDOH are interrelated and extend across the life span to impact health. 

This area of research addresses the interplay between SDOH and access to high-quality care and services across the cancer continuum and solutions to achieve optimal outcomes for all.

 Research may include studying: