Seed Grant Program

Overview

Early detection must not remain a matter of luck, geography, or resources.  It must become affordable, accessible and real—for everyone, everywhere. The Canary Center at the Stanford School of Medicine’s mission is to develop minimally invasive imaging and diagnostic techniques to detect and predict diseases at early, curable stages, and to develop treatments tailored for early-stage interventions and prevention.  The Liquid Biopsy Center at the Canary Center is focused on developing and applying state-of-the-art technologies for health monitoring and early disease detection using readily accessible bodily fluids (e.g. blood, urine). The purpose of this one-year seed grant, structured around specific milestones, is to promote the advancement of proof-of-concept projects to set the stage for additional, external funding to facilitate the translation of these tools toward point-of-care or clinical settings.

Application and Submission Details

Applications for the 2025 Canary Center: Liquid Biopsy Center Seed Grant Program are due December 5th, 11:59PM.  Detailed instructions are in the attached Liquid Biopsy RFA PDF and budget form. Submit proposals as a single PDF to Canary Center Deputy Director, Bruce Schaar, PhD (bschaar@stanford.edu) with the following naming convention: Last name PI_Last name PI_2025_CanaryLBC.

Program priorities 

• Projects focused on non-screened cancers
• Projects focused on collecting and studying fluids collected by minimally invasive approaches (e.g. blood, mucosal fluids, interstitial fluid, urine, sweat)
• Projects focused on longitudinal profiling and/or dynamic monitoring
• Projects focused on building platforms that can be adapted to multiple diseases and/or health monitoring applications
• Projects focused on accessible testing

Eligibility: 

All investigators must be Stanford faculty with UTL, MCL, CE, or NTL appointments. 

Other team members (trainees, staff, collaborators) are encouraged.

Requirements: 

Projects must relate directly to applications in early disease detection and/or health monitoring, broadly defined, with objectives that will benefit patients. Successful proposals would be those that if they achieve their desired outcomes, the PI is set up for greater success in getting additional, external funding. Proposals will be evaluated on the following factors:

• Innovation and scientific merit
• Potential impact (patient or user impact) Technical feasibility
• Translational plan (milestones, IP)
• Team and environment
• Plans for follow-on funding

Amount 

$150,000

How can the funds be used? 

Allowable costs include trainee/staff salaries, supplies, prototyping, core/imaging services, participant costs, project-specific software, non-capital equipment (<$5k/item), and milestone-related travel. Not allowable: admin staff, capital equipment (≥$5k), general-purpose IT.