Dr. Raphael J. Morscher has been recognised as the recipient of the FIGHT KIDS CANCER & St. Baldrick’s Foundation Arceci Innovation Award – a prestigious four-year grant of €250,000 annually (€1 million total) – announced at the SIOPe Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Oncology in Glasgow, UK.

Now in its third edition, this award represents a powerful collaboration between FIGHT KIDS CANCER and the U.S.-based St. Baldrick’s Foundation, united by shared values: promoting bold innovation, rigorous science, and research with genuine potential for clinical impact. The award supports early-career researchers, empowering them to pursue groundbreaking work without constraints and accelerating the development of more effective and compassionate pediatric cancer treatments.

The independent selection committee – composed of leading international paediatric oncology research experts – carefully evaluated numerous exceptional candidates before selecting Dr Morscher, whose application demonstrated outstanding scientific excellence and innovation across all evaluation criteria.

We are grateful to St. Baldrick’s Foundation for administering this rigorous selection process and for this exceptional partnership. This award reflects our commitment to investing in the brightest emerging talents in paediatric oncology research.

In his own words, Dr. Morscher shares what this award means and how he plans to advance his groundbreaking research.

Q: What does receiving this award mean to you, and how does it inspire your vision for the future of your research?

A: The 2026 FKC-SBF Innovation Award brings childhood cancer metabolism into the spotlight. My team and I want to inspire a new generation of scientists and clinicians to take this path. I am hopeful that joining forces with talents from different fields will allow us to have lasting impact for the everyday reality of children with cancer and their families.

Q: What is the focus of your research, and do you specialize in a particular type or subtype of childhood cancer?

A: Our work asks an unconventional question for paediatric oncology: not what is mutated in a child’s tumour, but what it eats and how that vulnerability can be turned into a treatment. Recent contributions reflect a deliberately tumour-type-independent strategy. We study the metabolism of childhood cancers patient by patient, treating metabolism as a window onto each child’s disease. That lets us work across tumour types: our recent findings span neuroblastoma, paediatric sarcomas, and leukaemia — clinically very different cancers that our work suggests can be reframed, and potentially treated, through a common metabolic lens.

Q: What specific research objectives or innovations does this funding now make possible for your team?

A: It will enable us to support the initiation of the first clinical trial for children with neuroblastoma based on concepts developed in our lab. Beyond that, it will accelerate innovative projects at the intersection of fundamental metabolism research and clinical translation — projects often deemed too risky by classic funding bodies.

Q: What does this award mean for your research ambitions?

A: This award supports our efforts at a crucial time, as we aim to move innovations towards clinical impact. It will allow us to strengthen bonds with the disease-specific clinical community, enhancing research collaborations and the pathway to patients.