The Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing critical funding to researchers investigating breast cancer cures and patient treatment options. Terri Brodeur, the Foundation’s namesake, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer in June 2003.  Effective treatment options did not exist to help Terri. After a two-year battle, marked by courage, grace, and dignity, at the young age of 41 years, Terri succumbed to the disease, leaving behind a beloved husband and three cherished children. Our foundation is committed to the pledge of delivering 100 percent of gross fundraising dollars to breast cancer science and has held fast to this promise since its inception nearly 20 years ago. The Foundation’s Grant Program seeks to fund clinical and pre-clinical fellowships in high impact, breast cancer therapeutic research areas.

The foundation seeks to fund broadly the very best proposals across all relevant disciplines and as such focus areas can include basic, pre-clinical, clinical research and clinical care. While there are no strict limits, fellowships are generally intended to support PhD, MD/PhD and MD physician scientists at earlier stages of their careers to enable them to establish/develop independent programs and compelling careers in breast cancer research and forward-looking patient care. The award period is two years with a 1-year renewal to occur upon reporting successful progress towards year one research goals in a report sent to the Foundation. Stipends are $125,000 distributed over a 2-year period in $25,000 increments as funds are needed, with the intention that all funds are strictly used for direct support of the grantee or their research program.   

The foundation maintains the highest standards and thus no minimum quota of grants is made in any one year. However, given the outstanding quality of candidates requesting support since the founding of the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation, the board seeks to fund as many meritorious fellowships as is financially possible each year. As such, it is our expectation that the grant administrators and mentors at each institution proactively carry out pre-screening of proposals or applicants to assure that proposals and applicants align with Foundation standards and philosophy. We ask that this occurs as an active process as it greatly enables the administration of the funds. We will provide additional guidance on this last point as may be needed.

Research Plan: Prospective applicants are expected to submit a research plan, pre-approved by their mentor or an organization-based board, to the foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board. The Foundation asks that the Institute specifically confirm review of the proposal in one or more of the documents described in the Supporting Materials. The research plan must be fundamentally sound and will include statements of (a) scientific, technical and clinical merit of the research question placed specifically in the context of current state of relevant area knowledge; (b) specific design, methodology, and feasibility of the study; (c) relevance of the proposed research plan to the applicant’s career/intellectual objectives; (d) medical and health significance of the proposed research to breast cancer prevention, control and/or treatment; and (e) appropriateness of the research plan as a vehicle for developing necessary research skills of the applicant. Where appropriate, the applicant is strongly encouraged to report preliminary findings that support the research proposal or concisely recount literature findings that do likewise. The research plan portion of the application contained in items (a) through (e) must not exceed 10 pages in length. This includes diagrams and figures but does not include supporting materials (see below) or scientific references. Applications falling outside of these nominal guidelines will not be reviewed and the applicant will not be notified of the failure to comply. However, the review board reserves the option of asking applicants for additional supportive information, to contact mentors and references directly and to interview any candidate prior to award.

Supporting Materials: In addition, and not included in the 10-page limit, the applicant must present (a) evidence of the institutional commitment to the applicant;  (b) a statement of the quality and relevance of their research,  (c) the adequacy of the research facilities and training opportunities for the proposed project; (d) the appropriateness of the facilities and resources specifically available to the candidate, (e) a personal statement (f) biosketch/resume and (g) 2-3 letters of reference. We ask applicants to take the submission of supporting materials as seriously as the formal proposal given their importance to assessing the overall proposal and applicant. Applications missing supporting materials or submitting inadequate materials will not be reviewed. The entire proposal must be submitted as one well-organized rolling PDF.

The Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation obtains its funds principally from private and corporate donations collected annually by our volunteers and through organized fund-raising events approved by the Foundation. Funding is recommended by the scientific advisory board and is administered by the sitting board of directors. While awards are never made based on need, the committee asks that applicants disclose other sources of funding or any relevant funding or administrative conflicts in their personal statement letter.

An application is mandatory for those applying for a 2025-2026 fellowship grant and must be submitted no later than November 21st , 2025. Proposals should be sent electronically to:

Dr. Nicholas A. Saccomano, Ph.D. 

SAB Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation

[email protected]  

Applications will be reviewed promptly by the scientific advisory board. The board will evaluate applications based on the following criteria: (a) the scientific merit, originality, and technical feasibility of the application; (b) the qualifications, experience and productivity of the applicant, and the members of the investigative team; (c) the facilities and resources available; and (d) the promise of the research or training as related to the control of breast cancer or to the benefit to be gained by persons with breast cancer. At the discretion of the board, interviews will be requested of candidates. The evaluations of the board are provided to the Foundation’s Board of Directors.  After considering the relative merit of the applications, the amount of available funds and the Foundation’s objectives, the board will determine which grants will be funded. Applications that are not funded may be revised and resubmitted in a future granting cycle under the guidance of the scientific advisory board. 

Approximately one month after receipt of the application, the applicant will receive an email confirming receipt of application and an approximate date upon which the board will communicate a decision back to the applicant. Awards will be made and announced on or around the first week of February 2026.

We require that publications and presentations resulting from research or training activities supported by this foundation, contain an acknowledgment that the effort was supported by the "Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation”.  We also require that a list of publications acknowledging TBBCF support is provided in a timely and thorough manner. This action is critical to our future fund-raising efforts and is required by our trustees and patrons. Failure to do so will be viewed negatively by trustees and donors.