scholar grant

Did you know that pediatric cancers are different than adult cancers? The St. Baldrick’s Foundation does one thing: fund pediatric cancer research. You can, too.

The “Day One” talk. It’s what some doctors call the conversation in which they must deliver the news that no parent wants to hear, “Your child has cancer.”

St. Baldrick’s Scholar, Kris Ann Schultz, M.D., M.S., has given the Day One talk. She studies rare childhood tumors at the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.

“Whether a child has been sick for a day, a week, or a year, it’s a talk no parent is really prepared to have,” said Dr. Schultz.

But as difficult as that first conversation can be, Dr. Schultz is inspired by the way many parents are able to step forward and ask important questions.

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There is something more exciting than barbecues, beach balls, and sprinklers in the summertime at the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. Every summer, childhood cancer research grants are awarded to the best and most-promising researchers and institutions in the world — bringing us one step closer to a cure for childhood cancers.

Here’s how our grant funding cycles work:

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When Dr. Alex Huang’s division chief invited him to get involved with St. Baldrick’s back in 2009, he was quick to jump on board.

“To me, it was a no-brainer,” he said.

Like any pediatric cancer researcher, Dr. Huang, a St. Baldrick’s Scholar, knows that funding for kids’ cancer research is hard to come by. And as a physician at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, he sees firsthand the effect that childhood cancer has on kids and their families.

Despite having devoted his career to helping kids with cancer, he wanted to do something more.

So he became a shavee℠.

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Hair has always been an important part of our family. My children have strong opinions about their own hair and how it should look.

For Sam, losing his hair was a big deal at first. I think it was more the idea of the change rather than the actual hair loss. It changed how he looked, and it changed how people looked at him. Throughout his treatment, he was mostly bald, and then as it grew back after treatment, we noticed and celebrated.

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Scientists might have found a way to starve off cancer cells in some pediatric brain tumors. Help support childhood cancer research like this by donating today.

Previous studies have shown that a particular signaling pathway, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), is turned on in low-grade gliomas. Scientists don’t know exactly how it gets turned on, according to Eric Raabe, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatric oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a St. Baldrick’s Scholar. “It’s not just a mutation in one particular gene. There might be four or five different genes that could be mutated individually that would then lead to this pathway being turned on, and it might be different in different tumors,” he explained.

So we can’t stop the pathway from being turned on — at least not at this point. But we might be able to stop it from working, as Dr. Raabe and his team have shown in a study published in the December issue of the journal Neuro-Oncology.

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Your donation to St. Baldrick’s funds pediatric cancer research. Donate now.

Historically, scientists have largely relied on nature as a source for treatments for various ailments. The modern-day antibiotic penicillin, for example, is derived from mold. Opium made from poppy seeds was cultivated and used for its pain relieving properties by ancient civilizations, and it is still used today to make morphine, codeine, and other painkillers in the opioid class.

Now, thanks to advances in modern chemistry, scientists are able to synthesize hundreds of thousands of known drug compounds and store them in vast chemical libraries. With the aid of highly technical robots and computers, researchers can test the entire library for effectiveness in treating a certain disease in a process known as high-throughput screening.

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The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is proud to award a total of $215,000 in pediatric oncology research grants to support the work of two physician-researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Linda Holmfeldt, Ph.D., received a $100,000 St. Baldrick’s Research Grant to support her project focused on hypodiploid acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Patients with this subtype of leukemia, in which the leukemic cells have lost multiple chromosomes, have a much lower chance of survival. Dr. Holmfeldt and her team have identified multiple gene mutations that are believed to be responsible for allowing the cancer to grow.

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As part of the St. Baldrick’s summer grants, Cincinatti Children’s Hospital Medical Center received $734,917 to support the efforts of a physician-researcher and one consortium working to cure childhood cancer.

Benjamin Mizukawa, M.D., received a three-year, $330,000 St. Baldrick’s Scholar award to support his work focused on acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Although most leukemia cells are readily killed by chemotherapy, if the leukemia stem cell is not killed in treatment, chances of survival are very low.

“We are studying how leukemia stem cells maintain self-renewal, or the ability to give rise to new leukemia cells,” Dr. Mizukawa explained. “By understanding the signals needed for self-renewal, we hope to identify new drugs to eliminate the leukemia stem cell and prevent relapsed disease.”

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We asked Dr. Jean Mulcahy Levy, a St. Baldrick’s Scholar, about astrocytoma, a type of childhood cancer. Read her explanation of astrocytoma symptoms, treatment options, and research opportunities.

What is astrocytoma?

Astrocytoma is a type of tumor that can happen in the brain or spinal cord. They are one of the most common brain tumors seen in children, with approximately 700 children diagnosed with low-grade astrocytoma — a slow-growing tumor — each year.

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Let’s hear it for another million raised by our St. Baldrick’s supporters, bringing the total to more than $13 million raised to help kids with cancer!

Helping to announce this shearly fantastic news is (from left to right): Anur Praveen, M.D., AVM Traders St. Badrick’s Fellow; Kevin J. Curran, M.D., St. Baldrick’s Scholar; and Liora Schultz, M.D., Markit St. Baldrick’s Fellow.

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