Grants Search Results

Based on progress to date, Dr. Feng was awarded new grants in 2017 and 2018 to fund additional years of this Scholar award and has been named the Arden Quinn Bucher Memorial Fund St. Baldrick's Scholar. An amplified gene, MYCN, is found in ~30% of neuroblastomas, and is associated with highly aggressive tumors and extremely poor prognosis. Dr. Feng's work on T-cell leukemia recently showed that when a specific gene is turned off it will prevent tumor growth caused by a close relative of MYCN, C-MYC. This research aims to test if targeting this gene will suppress neuroblastoma development associated with MYCN activity.

This grant is funded by and named for the Arden Quinn Bucher Memorial Fund, a St. Baldrick's Hero Fund. Arden’s intelligence, empathy, and dynamic personality charmed everyone and has now become her legacy. She was diagnosed with neuroblastoma at the age of two and even throughout treatment, bravely managed to keep smiling and learning. This memorial fund supports St. Baldrick’s mission of funding the most promising research with the hope of changing outcomes for children battling cancer.

Most children dying of cancer have tumors that have developed “resistance” to conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Scientists know very little about what is occurring in cancer cells to cause this, and therefore we have few options on how to cure such patients. Dr. Hogarty's team recently discovered that resistant cancer cells have altered the way their mitochondria, a key part of all cells, respond to the stress of cancer treatments; this leads to their inability to die. This research aims to explore this discovery further and find out opportunities to exploit it.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Li was awarded new grants in 2017 and 2018 to fund additional years of this Scholar award. Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma is one of the most common tumors in children and adolescents. No effective therapy is currently available for advanced staged patients, partly due to poor understanding of the disease. It is still considered mysterious because the exact cells from which the tumors develop (cells of origin) are not clear.  Like fingerprints, there are certain molecular events that are signatures of the tumor. By following these signatures Dr. Li, St. Baldrick's V Scholar, and his team recently started to pick up hints that are potentially the cells of origin for this mysterious tumor. The goal of this study is a better understanding of the disease and to yield important information, which will guide the development of more effective therapeutic approaches. This grant is named for The V Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to saving lives by helping to find a cure for cancer.

Leukemia cells divide extensively, often by hijacking mechanisms that regulate normal stem cells. Dr. Magee is working to characterize genes that potentially regulate the growth of normal stem cells and leukemia cells. By characterizing these genes, Dr. Magee's team hopes that the proteins encoded by these genes will become targets for novel anti-leukemia therapies.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Mar was awarded a new grant in 2017 to fund an additional year of this Scholar award. Although many children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are being cured today, a significant number still relapse. New targeted therapies that specifically attack the biology of ALL have great potential to improve outcomes; however, few specific biological vulnerabilities have been identified so far. Dr. Mar's team recently used a method to find novel biological vulnerabilities specific to ALL. As the Ben's Green Drakkoman Fund St. Baldrick's Scholar, Dr. Mar is studying those novel vulnerabilities in leukemia models, with the goal to understand why they are essential to ALL, and to determine their suitability for therapy.

This grant is named for the Ben's Green Drakkoman Fund, created to honor the memory of Ben Stowell who battled osteosarcoma with an inspiring determination to live life fully. The fund is named after a super hero Ben created named the Green Drakkoman who defeats his enemy, the Evil Alien.

The most common childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow. Exciting new research shows that healthy normal bone marrow cells can protect leukemia cells from cancer drugs. Dr. Mullen's research aims to find ways to prevent normal marrow cells from protecting leukemia cells and thus make cancer drugs more effective.

Children with a rare brain cancer called glioblastoma rarely survive. The treatment of this cancer has not advanced for years because of difficulty accessing and growing the tumor cells. Recently, the tumor cells were found to harbor changes in a gene that is strongly conserved through evolution. Dr. Partridge has modeled the same genetic mutations in simple yeast cells to ask how the mutations impact the growth of cells and to find ways to effectively kill cells bearing the mutations. This research will then ask if similar therapies can be used to treat children with glioblastoma.

This grant is made with generous support from the "Henry Cermak Fund for Pediatric Cancer Research" created in memory of Henry Cermak and dedicated to his wish that "no one gets left out".

AML is the most common type of blood cancer. Normal blood stem cells have the capacity to produce all types of blood cells. However, impaired blood stem cells, as a consequence of genetic changes, play a central role in the initiation and progression of AML. Dr. Qian is researching how an alteration of expression of a critical gene, which is required for normal function of blood stem cells, causes AML. This study also aims to identify new therapeutic approaches to cure childhood leukemia by targeting the impaired blood stem cells.

Children who are successfully treated for cancer sometimes develop a second cancer due to treatment with radiation and chemotherapy drugs. Leukemia is one of the most common types of secondary cancer, and treatment-induced leukemia is extremely aggressive and very hard to cure. Chromosome 7 is often deleted in this type of leukemia. Dr. Shannon recently created models with deletions similar to those found in children with treatment-induced leukemia. With the Kenneth and Mary Ellen Wilson St. Baldick's Research Grant, Dr. Shannon is using these models to understand how these leukemias develop, why they are so hard to treat, and to test new therapies.

This grant is named in memory of Kenneth and Mary Ellen Wilson, parents of Todd and Jason Alonzo. Their legacy of giving and generosity lives on in the service and dedication of their children.

Better therapies that specifically target cancer cells while leaving normal cells undamaged will lead to therapies with fewer short or long term side effects. Cancer, specifically Ewing sarcoma, changes how proteins are made. New proteins occur by rearranging the messages that come from DNA. The rearranged messages turn into proteins that keep the cancer growing. Dr. Toretsky's research aims to find out what the rearranged messages are and how the new proteins could be targeted with new medicines.

This grant is made with generous support from the Team Clarkie Fund, a St. Baldrick's Hero Fund created to honor Clarkie Carroll. It will fund Ewing sarcoma research while stimulating greater awareness and inspiring others to believe pediatric cancer research can and will lead to a cure.

Improving the outcome of aggressive childhood leukemias depends on developing new targeted treatments. With the NetApp St. Baldrick's Research Grant, Dr. Wechsler is studying a mutant gene called CALM-AF10 that causes high-risk leukemias in children. They determined that the leukemia-causing properties of this gene depend on its interaction with a partner protein called CRM1. This research is studying the mechanisms by which CRM1 enables CALM-AF10 to cause leukemias, and the ability of drugs to inhibit CRM1 to stop leukemia growth.

This grant is named for the NetApp team, whose offices around the world have raised more than $5.8 million since 2007 for life-saving research through the St. Baldrick's Foundation.

This grant provides resources to establish a new MIBG therapy program to treat neuroblastoma, an aggressive childhood cancer which can be difficult to treat. This treatment has been shown to help children with relapsed neuroblastoma and is now being used in newly diagnosed high risk patients.

This grant funds a Clinical Research Associate to ensure that more kids can be treated on clinical trials, often their best hope for a cure.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Ladle was awarded a new grant in 2015 to fund an optional third year of this fellowship. While the body's immune system is capable of attacking cancer, many factors prevent this from happening. The goal of Dr. Ladle's research is to develop a vaccine to be given to patients that activates their own immune system to treat their cancer. The project focuses on how the body regulates the immune system to normally ignore cancer. New drugs are being developed that could help take the brakes off the immune system and allow it to recognize and attack cancer. Combining these drugs with a cancer vaccine could provide the boost needed for immune therapies to effectively treat pediatric cancers.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Schuback was awarded a new grant in 2015 to fund an optional third year of this fellowship. Dr. Schuback's research aims to improve treatment for children with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), a type of blood cancer. This work focuses on characterizing the scope of mutations in a specific gene, ETV6, in children with AML. Preliminary work indicates that patients with such mutations are more likely to have a poor outcome. This project hopes to use the mutations in ETV6 as a marker to identify patients at high risk of relapse at the beginning of their treatment, in order to predetermine therapies that are most likely to succeed.

AML is a devastating form of leukemia. Therapy for AML is highly toxic and, still, only a minority of patients survive. This project aims to develop new, less toxic, and more effective therapies for AML. Dr. Salstrom hopes to use models to determine exactly which therapies will work best for which patients. This approach, called personalized medicine, allows researchers to treat each child's individual leukemia in the most effective and safest way possible.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Choo, the Tap Cancer Out St. Baldrick’s Fellow, was awarded a new grant in 2015 to fund an optional third year of this fellowship. Ewing sarcoma is a bone and soft tissue cancer that occurs in adolescent and young adults (AYAs). When the cancer spreads (metastasis), survival falls below 30% despite aggressive chemotherapy and surgery. Fortunately, promising data has identified certain genes that are specifically turned on in metastatic Ewing cells. By developing targeted therapy against these gene products, Dr. Choo hopes to effectively treat Ewing sarcoma. In addition, targeting this unique pathway may reduce the use of conventional toxic chemotherapy agents that can cause cancer themselves. Ultimately, this research may help reduce both morbidity and save countless children with metastatic Ewing sarcoma.

This grant recognizes the partnership with Tap Cancer Out, a jiu-jitsu based 501(c)(3) nonprofit raising awareness and funds for cancer fighting organizations on behalf of the grappling community.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Norris was awarded new grants in 2016 and 2018 to fund additional years of this Scholar award. More than 70% of children diagnosed with cancer are cured of their disease, but today's therapies can have severe and life-long side effects, and too many children die from cancer. Cyclin dependent kinase-5 (Cdk5) inhibitors are a new type of therapy with the potential to treat childhood cancer. Dr. Norris, the Rebecca Alison Meyer Fund for Pediatric Cancer Research St. Baldrick’s Scholar, uses laboratory and computer models to determine how to optimize therapy with Cdk5 inhibitors, and how to combine Cdk5 inhibitors with current cancer treatments. Using this information, Dr. Norris studies Cdk5 inhibitors in adolescents with relapsed cancer, with the goal of developing new treatments for children with cancer.

A portion of this grant is named for The Rebecca Alison Meyer Fund for Pediatric Cancer Research created to honor the memory of the joyful and spunky little girl who courageously battled brain cancer. Rebecca’s legacy lives on in the funding of promising glioblastoma research. Awarded at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and transferred to Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Crompton was awarded new grants in 2016 and 2017 to fund additional years of this Scholar award. Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone tumor affecting adolescents and young adults. Current treatment regimens fail to improve outcomes for patients with high-risk disease, and new therapeutic approaches are needed. Dr. Crompton's team recently identified a protein that is highly active in Ewing sarcoma and is targeted by drugs in clinical development. Dr. Crompton, the Team Clarkie Fund St. Baldrick’s Scholar, aims to demonstrate that these inhibitors warrant testing in clinical trials for patients with Ewing sarcoma, define the clinical indications for their use, and identify the most effective treatment combinations. Lastly, the project will develop a new screening effort to identify additional drug targets in Ewing sarcoma.

A portion of this grant is named for the Team Clarkie Fund created to honor Clarkie Carroll and fund Ewing’s sarcoma research while stimulating greater awareness and inspiring others to believe pediatric cancer research can and will lead to a cure.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Rainusso was awarded new grants in 2016 and 2017 to fund additional years of this Scholar award. Dr. Rainusso’s work looks to identify and target the most malignant, most aggressive and most difficult-to-treat cancer cells in pediatric sarcomas. Dr. Rainusso, the Alan’s Sarcoma Research Fund St. Baldrick’s Scholar, is also testing if the patients’ body immune system can kill cancer cells in pediatric sarcomas.

A portion of this grant is named for the Alan’s Sarcoma Research Fund that was created in memory of Alan Sanders who was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma in his hip at 17 months. He had an indomitable spirit and through his 4 ½ year battle with cancer, he was joyful, upbeat and pressed on courageously through surgery and treatments. Fighting cancer was all Alan knew from an early age and his rallying cry became “Fight’s on!” Today his family and friends carry on his legacy in the fight against childhood cancer by funding sarcoma research.