The Meso Foundation has been instrumental in providing seed money for research into mesothelioma when almost no other research funds for the cancer were available. 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.

In 2008, for the first time, mesothelioma will be included as research priority within the DoD's Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program. This funding resource can serve as a vital resource to the meso research community and can help advance the research and treatment of mesothelioma.

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 meso cancer cell and bring us closer to the cure.