Thanks to $14.5 million raised in 2025, there are numerous innovative cancer research projects underway through VeloSano-funded grants.
In addition to VeloSano Pilot Grants and Trainee Research Grants, the efforts of our VeloSano community have also funded two VeloSano Collaborative grants.
VeloSano Collaborative Grants are awarded over a two-year period and require Cleveland Clinic researchers to partner with one or more outside institutions. The idea is to expand Cleveland Clinic’s cancer research potential by bringing the community’s brightest minds together for a cure.
Researcher:
Miriam Cremer, MD, MPH, Cleveland Clinic
Collaborative Partners:
MedWish MedWorks and Care Alliance
What’s Happening:
The project focuses on early detection and prevention of cervical cancer, which is highly treatable—and even preventable—when caught early. The team will use community-based, same-day cervical cancer screening that allows women to self-collect samples, enabling faster results and immediate follow-up care when needed. This approach helps identify precancers earlier and ensures care happens in real time, rather than relying on patients to return later.
Why This Research is Important:
A major challenge is that those at highest risk are often not being screened, particularly patients who don’t return for follow-up care or don’t access preventive services at all. This research aims to bring screening directly into communities, especially underserved or rural areas, where screening rates are lower. The goal is to reach people who typically fall through the cracks—those who don’t routinely seek preventive care but are at highest risk.
How VeloSano is Making a Difference:
“The funding provided by VeloSano is so important because you can get preliminary data to apply for bigger grants later and also because grants are much harder to come by,” says Dr. Cremer. “There are so many people competing for the same small amounts of dollars. So, this is huge, especially in the field of public health. I want to work where the need is greatest and unfortunately those are often the areas where funding is hardest to secure.”
A Word of Thanks:
“Receiving this VeloSano Collaborative Grant has left me with a huge sense of gratitude,” says Dr. Cremer. “It motivates me to be a good steward of these funds, and I have to make sure that we really make a difference, because we can save lives. If we can detect pre-cancer, we can make sure that moms are there to be with their families. We can make sure that no one dies of a preventable cancer.”
Researcher:
Chao Ma, PhD, Cleveland Clinic
Collaborative Partners:
Yuan Gao, PhD, Case Western Reserve University
What’s Happening:
The study focuses on Ewing sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer that primarily affects children and teenagers and has limited treatment options, especially after recurrence. The current challenge is that studying mechanisms for Ewing sarcoma are limited. Current research relies on cells grown on plastic dishes, where they lose critical characteristics seen in patients, limiting the accuracy of findings. To solve this challenge, the team developed a bioengineered platform that mimics the bone marrow microenvironment, where Ewing sarcoma develops by using multiple cell types from bone marrow to recreate a more realistic tumor environment. When cancer cells are placed in this model, they regain key features seen in patients, making it a much more accurate research tool. The goal is to learn more about how the environment impacts Ewing sarcoma tumors to develop new drugs to treat this cancer type.
Why This Research is Important:
This platform is described as potentially “game-changing” because it fills a major gap in Ewing sarcoma research. It enables more accurate study of disease behavior and could lead to new therapies for a cancer with few options today.
How VeloSano is Making a Difference:
“I was really excited to get the VeloSano Pilot Grant,” says Dr. Ma. “It’s great to have these internal funding opportunities. It will help us a lot to develop the project and hopefully we can compete for larger, federal funding. We have top institutions here in Cleveland, so if grant programs can promote creative collaborations across these institutions and generate some synergy, that’s great. I’m happy to be part of the VeloSano community and hopefully we can make big progress in in the near future.”
A Word of Thanks:
“Thank you to the VeloSano community,” says Dr. Ma. “Without your help, these things cannot be done in the lab. We hope to make progress in the lab and then hopefully we can translate to the clinical setting and then help patients.”
“We really appreciate it,” says Dr. Gao. “None of this would happen without support from VeloSano, especially for these preliminary but high-potential projects.”
100% For The Cure
