Hee Won Yang, PhD, didn't need millions of dollars to ask one of the biggest questions in cancer medicine—just $80,000 to $200,000 and the nerve to try. In 2021, the researcher at Columbia University's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center received a Velocity Cancer Research Award to investigate a seemingly narrow problem: how breast cancer cells develop resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors, drugs that work until they suddenly don't. Within two years, that seed funding had multiplied into multiple major grants, including an NIH R01 award and support from the American Cancer Society and the V Foundation. Yang's trajectory reveals how the smallest investments in cancer research often produce the largest returns.
Breakthroughs in cancer science rarely spring fully formed from federal agencies or major foundations. They begin with hunches—promising but unproven ideas that need just enough support to generate preliminary evidence. The challenge is that federal funders and major philanthropies typically require that evidence before they commit significant resources, creating a catch-22 for ambitious early-stage researchers. Columbia's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center has designed its pilot programs to solve this problem, providing what Dr. Sandra Ryeom, chair of the center's pilot grant committee, calls "that first leg up to launch larger research projects."
At HICCC, pilot funding moves with strategic speed. Awards typically range from $80,000 to $200,000 over one to two years—enough to test a hypothesis and generate preliminary data, but structured to attract researchers with bold new questions. The selection process is rigorous: investigators submit comprehensive proposals evaluated for scientific merit, innovation, and potential downstream impact. Selected projects are funded quickly, allowing teams to begin gathering results without delay. The emphasis falls on the newest frontiers in cancer research and multi-disciplinary collaboration, not incremental refinements of existing work.
The model works because it measures success broadly. HICCC tracks its pilot-funded projects for years, following them as they evolve into larger initiatives and clinical applications. A substantial proportion go on to secure major external grants, often multiplying the initial investment many times over. According to Emer Smyth, PhD, the center's administrative director, "Our pilot programs generate a more than sixfold return on the initial investment we make in them."
That multiplier effect appears across Columbia's cancer research landscape. Christine Chio, PhD, used her Velocity Cancer Research Award to explore immune evasion in pancreatic cancer, using chemical proteomics to understand how tumors escape immune detection. That work grew into an NIH R01 and additional major awards from the Department of Defense and the Mark Foundation. For physician-scientists, the pathway differs but the impact mirrors the lab: Ryan Moy, MD, PhD, received Clinical Trialist Early Career Scholar support to develop new treatment strategies for diffuse gastric cancer, work that directly led to a funded Phase II clinical trial through Gateway for Cancer Research—bringing an experimental therapy closer to actual patients.
The logic is straightforward. By enabling researchers to take risks early, when stakes are lower and funding is nimble, pilot programs help transform high-risk ideas into viable research directions. That risk-taking, in turn, strengthens the entire institution's capacity to compete for external funding and launch new initiatives. For cancer patients waiting for tomorrow's treatments, these small bets today represent something larger: the discovery engine that turns possibility into practice.