ESUN

The Generosity of Others

By Bruce Shriver, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, ESUN

As we close the seventh year of publishing ESUN, we owe a debt of gratitude to all of those who have given so freely of their time, expertise, experience and funds to help support our efforts. Scores of authors have submitted articles to ESUN for consideration. There have been over 125 sarcoma oncologists and investigators who have been involved in the peer-review process of these articles. Scores of investigators have submitted grant applications seeking funding to support sarcoma related research. Over 225 sarcoma oncologists and investigators have been involved in the peer-review process of these applications. Taken together, both of these processes have involved an extraordinary gift of time from those whose schedules are already overflowing with commitments to their patients, the families and their profession. The results of their work are evident in the quality of the articles published in ESUN and the quality of research that we have funded.

Over the past seven years we have also been the beneficiaries of the incredible generosity of thousands of people who have donated over two million dollars to help fund sarcoma research. We are proud of our record of transparency and accountability to these donors and the sarcoma community.

Our grants are made to investigators at research institutes, hospitals and medical centers in the US and abroad. We encourage grant applications that involve collaboration among institutions and across national boundaries as well as between departments within an institution. We want to fund quality research in sarcoma wherever it is being done. Applications are peer-reviewed by four to six specialists in sarcoma in as timely a manner as possible. This process typically takes four to five months. When a grant is awarded, we publish the name of the investigator(s), his/her/their institution(s), and the amount of the grant and a detailed description of the investigator’s experimental plan in ESUN. Further, we require a report of the results also be published at the end of the grant period, also in ESUN. Thus, both the experimental plan and the research results are published, juxtaposed to one another, in an open, publically accessible way.

Our grants are not intended to support the salary of the investigator nor do they support the administrative or indirect costs of the investigator's institution. The applicant's primary affiliation must be with a nonprofit institution. A signed copy of the grant application along with the letter of compliance with these terms must be sent to us in order to enter the application into the grant review process. We are proud of this level of transparency and accountability. To put it simply, we believe that donors have the right to know exactly how their money is used, and we use ESUN and our website to accomplish this. As a final note, 97-98% of all of the funds that we receive to support research go directly to support sarcoma research (i.e., we have a 2-3% overhead).

We want to thank everyone who has been so generous to our efforts. We cannot repay you for all you have done.