BCAN Announces Recipient of Its 2025 Bladder Cancer Career Development Award

January 30, 2026

$250,000 Grant Supports Innovative Immunotherapy Research to Improve Bladder Cancer Treatment

(BETHESDA, MD) Today, the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN) announced that Haolong Li, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Human Biology Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, is the recipient of its 2025 BCAN Career Development Award (CDA).

BCAN’s Career Development Award is a prestigious $250,000 grant designed to support early-career researchers as they establish independent programs focused on bladder cancer. These awards fund promising translational research with the potential to turn new scientific ideas into meaningful advances for patients.

Meri-Margaret Deoudes, CEO of BCAN, said, “BCAN is proud to support Dr. Li’s highly innovative research, which reflects exactly what the Career Development Award was created to do—help talented investigators bring bold, patient-focused ideas.”

Dr. Li’s research is developing a new immunotherapy for bladder cancer using natural killer (NK) cells, immune cells that can naturally recognize and destroy cancer. Unlike some treatments that must be custom-made for each patient, NK cells can be collected from healthy donors, stored in advance and used for many patients, making NK therapy faster and more accessible.

With BCAN’s support, Dr. Li will research engineering these cells with a guiding signal called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), that helps them target Nectin-4, a protein found on most bladder cancer cells, with delivery possible by IV or directly into the bladder.

If successful, this work could lay the groundwork for a new immunotherapy that is safer, effective across multiple stages of bladder cancer, and more accessible to patients.

Dr. Li said, “This award allows us to translate fundamental discoveries into new immunotherapies that are safer, more accessible, and designed specifically for bladder cancer patients.”

To date, BCAN has committed more than $13 million to bladder cancer research to help create better todays and more tomorrows for patients and families. The need for new and improved treatments remains urgent: more than 725,000 people are currently living with bladder cancer in the United States, and in 2026 alone, more than 84,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with it.

The Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN) was founded in 2005 and provides patients with the critical information, education, and community support they need to thrive today, while advancing innovative research and responsive public policy to inspire hope for tomorrow.

Contact:
Mark Story
Vice President of Communications and Marketing
Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network
[email protected]