$105,773 Childhood Cancer Research Grant Awarded to University of Wisconsin-Madison

Part of $21.2 Million Awarded in New Grants by the St. Baldrick’s Foundation

MADISON, Wisc. (July 30, 2015) – The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a volunteer-powered and donor-centered charity dedicated to raising money for childhood cancer research, is proud to award a $105,773 St. Baldrick’s research grant to support the work of Paul Sondel, M.D., Ph.D., head of The Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Paul Sondel has seen positive results using an immune-based therapy to treat children with cancer. Immunotherapy is treatment that uses a person’s own immune system to fight disease. He recently found the presence of an antibody that seems to predict which patients will react well to this treatment. Dr. Sondel will use this grant to understand what the antibody is recognizing, and then determine an effective course of treatment for kids with cancer.

“Those of us working daily in the realm of childhood cancer treatment see every day the commitment of children and families, doing ’whatever it takes’ to get better,” said Dr. Sondel. “We also see how research progress (both lab and clinical research), like research supported by the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, is helping more and more of these children and families to achieve this goal. Results prove that through research, we can and will do better. We are already seeing that immunotherapy can provide a means to improve the results for treatment of certain cancers. This grant is focused on linking clinical and lab research in a way that, we hope, may provide leads for further advances using immunotherapy.”

To learn how you can get involved visit www.StBaldricks.org, and connect with St. Baldrick’s on social media via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo.

About St. Baldrick’s Foundation
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-powered charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives. Since 2005, St. Baldrick’s has awarded more than $176 million to support lifesaving research, making the Foundation the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants. For more information about the St. Baldrick’s Foundation please call 1.888.899.BALD or visit www.StBaldricks.org.

###