The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation has been instrumental in providing seed money for research into mesothelioma when almost no other research funds for the cancer were available. The Meso Foundation's funding objectives are twofold: to directly fund basic research and support clinical trials in worthy, peer-reviewed, projects as well as to stimulate additional federal research funding opportunities.

To date the Meso Foundation has funded over $5 million in research projects across the globe. It takes a number of years to move from the bench to the bedside but as the Meso Foundation's research grant program matures it is helping to open up exciting new clinical trials available to patients now.

A top priority for the Meso Foundation has been to strengthen the federal government’s response to the mesothelioma tragedy through a commitment of new federal research dollars. Our advocacy efforts finally paid off when in 2008, for the first time, mesothelioma research was included as a priority within the DOD PRMRP. Mesothelioma investigators are now eligible to compete for funding through the program’s 2009 grant cycle.

Since 2004, the Meso Foundation has advocated for federal funding and creation of the virtual bank, which is the first mesothelioma tissue bank that is a collaborative effort among multiple institutions. The NMVB is funded by Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in association with National Institutes of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) and coordinated by the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburg. This resource should greatly accelerate genetic and protein profiling of the mesothelioma cancer cell and bring us closer to the cure.