The Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation Grants $50,000 to U-M for Cancer Research

For over 50 years, the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation has worked to provide funding and support to cancer researchers with the goal of prevention and providing excellent care to patients. Part of this funding comes from two of the foundation’s grants: Starr Children’s Fund and the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation Grant. In 2024, the University of Michigan was awarded $50,000 for a research project focused on colorectal cancer patients. 

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Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation Executive Director Ann Marie Moss. Photo courtesy of the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation.

“The premise of the project requesting funding was very unique,” Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation Executive Director Ann Marie Moss said. “There are statistics, […] those in the medical community have seen it, a lot that incidences of cancer are raising among younger adults.”

According to the research project description, the younger adult population will make up 30% of all colon cancers in the United States by 2030. The grant awarded to U-M focuses specifically on colon cancer treatment for adults aged 50 years or younger with the goal of applying the findings to others in the same age group with similar symptoms and experiences.

“One of the disturbing outcomes of that is that side effects of treatment will be felt for much longer in that patient’s life if there are side effects and the quality of life for younger patients that are undergoing that treatment, or who have underwent treatment and might be in remission, often declines,” Moss said. “There’s not been a comprehensive study to really evaluate how, it’s my understanding from their proposal that it’s all anecdotal […] this is the first attempt to really study that with that methodology.”

Since 1971, the foundation has wanted to fund projects that were unique and innovative ways to approach cancer research, prevention and treatment. With the goal of driving the needle in research, the grant review committees look to fund younger research projects to take a step toward developing data around new ideas. With preliminary data and findings, the foundation hopes that the newer projects it funds can then get larger funding sources from the federal government or other grants. 

“This specific project, for example, it’s the first time, it’s very new,” Moss said. “They needed funding to get it off the ground, and so we were able to support that so that they could move forward in testing their hypothesis.”


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Vince Lombardi was a football coach for the Green Bay Packers, winning five NFL championships and two Super Bowls with the team during his time as coach. At 57, Lombardi experienced an aggressive form of colon cancer and subsequently passed away. 

“Anytime a project centers around treatment options research for colon cancer, that does kind of raise our interest because of that association [to Lombardi],” Moss stated. 

Although colon cancer was the focus of U-M’s proposal, the foundation grants funding to research in many cancer-related initiatives. Some of the other awardees for the previous year included the College of Wisconsin’s project focused on pancreatic cancer among three other projects. Overall, the foundation awarded $320,000 to eight organizations. The team at U-M hopes to address how younger adults may experience colorectal cancer differently from other age demographics using unique and interesting factors including credit records and treatment patterns. 

“[The researchers are going to] really take a look at what are the unmet needs for this younger patient population, and how can they influence, affect, adjust, improve treatment recommendations for this younger patient populations to minimize some of those side effects later,” Moss said.

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