Achievements in cancer research supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China

For the past two decades, great achievements have been made in cancer research of China and the majority of them were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). In this article, we reviewed the funding history of NSFC including the number of proposals, the amount of grants, distribution of supported program categories during the period of 1987 to 2012 and the representative achievements made by continuous support of NSFC. Also, the impacts of NSFC support on discipline development and talent fostering were analyzed. From 1987 to 2012, a total of 8738 proposals related to cancer research were funded by NSFC. The percentages of the Research Program, Talent-Training Program, and the Research Environment Program were 61.19%, 36.32%, and 2.49%, respectively. Under the support of NSFC, cancer research in China has achieved a significantly rapid and balanced development in both disciplines and scientist resources.