# The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research

Source: https://onco.cc/institutions/mark-foundation/  
OnCo record `mark-foundation` (Institution). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A philanthropic funder that backs high-risk cancer biology, tumour-immunology and computational projects and invests in start-ups translating them.

## Summary

Founded in 2017 by Alex Knaster, the Mark Foundation funds cancer research through Emerging Leader Awards for early-career investigators, Endeavor Awards for multi-institution team science, ASPIRE awards for high-risk ideas, and the Mark Foundation Institutes and centres at institutions including the Francis Crick Institute, Cambridge and Yale. It has an active venture arm that invests in companies emerging from funded science. Priority areas include the mechanisms of drug resistance, metastasis, tumour-immune interactions, early detection and computational oncology, and it partners with AACR, Cancer Research UK and the Damon Runyon Foundation on joint programmes.

## Fields

- Kind: Institution
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Also known as: Mark Foundation
- City: New York, US
- Type: consortium
- Website: https://themarkfoundation.org

## Sources

- Mark Foundation: https://themarkfoundation.org

## Connected records

- fronts: [AI & Computation](https://onco.cc/fronts/ai-computation/), [Drug Discovery Platforms](https://onco.cc/fronts/drug-discovery/), [Immunotherapy](https://onco.cc/fronts/immunotherapy/)
- institutions: [American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)](https://onco.cc/institutions/aacr/), [Cancer Grand Challenges](https://onco.cc/institutions/cancer-grand-challenges/), [Cancer Research UK](https://onco.cc/institutions/cruk/), [Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation](https://onco.cc/institutions/damon-runyon/), [The Francis Crick Institute](https://onco.cc/institutions/francis-crick/)
- people: [Ryan Schoenfeld](https://onco.cc/people/ryan-schoenfeld/)
- bottlenecks: [Acquired resistance to every therapy](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-resistance/), [Metastasis is understood least and studied last](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-metastasis-biology/), [The valley of death between lab and product](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-translational-valley/)

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