The short answer
The Cancer Research Institute was founded in 1953 on the idea that the immune system could fight cancer. Its stated mission is to create a world immune to cancer by driving scientific discovery, accelerating collaboration, and turning breakthroughs into lifesaving treatments. It is primarily a research funder, so it helps patients through immunotherapy education, patient stories, and a clinical trial finder rather than direct services.
CRI was founded in 1953 on the belief that the immune system could combat cancer.
It funds immunotherapy research and clinical trials.
CRI describes itself as a resource for cancer immunotherapy information.
For patients, its main offerings are immunotherapy education, a Clinical Trial Finder, and published immunotherapy stories from patients and others.
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An organization built around one idea
This page explains what the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) can and cannot do for patients and families.
The Cancer Research Institute says it began in 1953 on a specific belief: that the immune system could fight cancer. Today, immunotherapy is used to treat some cancers (NCI notes that some treatments help the immune system better detect and kill cancer cells). CRI describes its work as funding the science behind it.
Its stated mission is to create a world immune to cancer. It says it pursues that by driving scientific discovery, accelerating collaboration, and turning breakthroughs into lifesaving treatments. That is an ambitious mission. It tells you the organization is aiming at a research goal rather than at running a service.
CRI funds cancer immunotherapy research and clinical trials. It gives grants and fellowships to scientists. For its current funding totals, see its own website.
Why the funder-versus-service distinction matters
Cancer nonprofits do very different jobs, and the name rarely tells you which. Some run helplines, hand out grants to patients, and assign navigators to individual cases. Others pay for laboratory science.
CRI sits mostly in the second group. It is a research funder. That means the help it gives patients is real but indirect: better treatments over time, plus information in the meantime. If you are looking for someone to call about a rent payment or an insurance denial, this is not the organization for that particular problem.
Knowing this in advance saves you a frustrating afternoon.
What CRI can do for you today
Even as a research funder, CRI offers a few things patients can use right now.
Explain immunotherapy without hype or jargon. CRI positions itself as a resource for cancer immunotherapy information. It publishes educational material on immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is genuinely confusing, and having a plain explanation before your appointment changes the quality of the conversation.
Help you look for a trial. CRI offers a Clinical Trial Finder, which it describes as connecting patients with immunotherapy trials matched to their diagnosis. Searching is not the same as enrolling, but a search gives you something concrete to bring to your team.
Connect you with other people. CRI publishes immunotherapy stories, personal accounts from patients, scientists, and supporters whose lives have been changed by immunotherapy. It also invites people to connect as what it calls ImmunoAdvocates. Hearing from someone who has been through the same treatment answers questions that no fact sheet reaches.
CRI says this material is public. Check its site for current details.
What CRI cannot do
It cannot treat you. There is no CRI clinic and no CRI doctor.
It cannot enroll you in a trial. Trial eligibility is decided by the study team at the site running that study, based on the protocol's rules and your medical details. A trial finder is a map, not a ticket.
It cannot pay your bills. Its money goes to scientists.
It cannot tell you whether immunotherapy is right for you. Immunotherapy is not a universal answer. It works well in some cancers and situations and poorly or not at all in others. It also carries its own side effects. Ask your team which ones to watch for and who to call. Whether it belongs in your plan depends on your cancer type, your tumor's features, your other health conditions, and what else is available. That is an oncology conversation.
And it cannot promise that research funding will arrive in time to change your own treatment. Science moves on its own schedule.
How to use an advocacy organization well
There is a subtle risk with any organization devoted to one treatment approach. Its whole identity is built around believing in that approach. That belief funds important work, and it can also make the material read more hopeful than your own situation warrants.
That is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to pair it with your team.
A useful sequence looks like this. Read CRI's explanation of how immunotherapy works so the words in your appointment stop being noise. Note down what you do not understand. Then ask your oncologist the direct questions:
If the answer is that immunotherapy is not right for your cancer, that answer is not a failure of the organization or of you. It is information, and it is better to have it early than to spend months chasing a door that is not there.
Sources
Common questions
Is the Cancer Research Institute a hospital?
No. CRI is a nonprofit that funds immunotherapy research and publishes information about it. It has no clinics and does not treat patients.
What can a patient use from CRI right now?
Its immunotherapy education material, its Clinical Trial Finder, and its immunotherapy stories, personal accounts from patients, scientists, and supporters.
Can CRI get me into an immunotherapy trial?
It can help you look. CRI offers a way to find clinical trials, but enrolling is decided by the study team at the site running the trial, based on that trial's eligibility rules and your medical details.
Does CRI pay for treatment?
No. Its funding goes to scientists and research, not to patient bills. For cost help, look to patient assistance organizations.
Is immunotherapy right for me because CRI promotes it?
That is not how it works. Immunotherapy helps in some cancers and situations and not in others, and it carries its own serious side effects. Whether it fits you is a question for your oncology team.
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Sources last checked: 2026-10-02 what this meansLast updated: 2026-10-02Next planned review: 2027-09-03
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Cancer Explained does not originate medical claims. Every page restates guidance already published by the National Cancer Institute, the CDC, the USPSTF and the FDA, in plain language, with the source cited so you can check the original yourself. AI does the translating and organizing; automated checks test claims, citations, clarity and safety before anything publishes, and this is translation and navigation, not clinical judgment. Nothing here is personal medical advice, and no page can account for your particular situation.
Editorial status: Editorial review complete — This page completed Cancer Explained's editorial checks (sources, safety, plain language, duplication). It has not been reviewed by a physician or other healthcare professional.
Human medical review: not completed. Pages here are not signed off by a clinician before they publish. That is not an oversight we are quietly working around: we restate published guidance and cite it, so the authority belongs to the source rather than to us, and every page names where its claims come from — you can verify us instead of trusting us. Where a volunteer clinician has reviewed a page, their name and credentials appear on it; where no name appears, no clinician has checked it. We are glad to have reviewers and are recruiting them, and we do not hold pages back waiting for one. Use this site to understand your situation and to ask better questions of the people treating you.
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