Grants Search Results

Dr. Phipps is studying what happens to children who were treated with bone marrow transplant for cancer many years ago. This is a very challenging treatment that can cause problems for survivors in a number of areas, including their thinking and learning ability, their physical health, and their ability to have children. He is learning how these children and young adults are faring relative to their healthy peers, to identify factors that lead to better or poorer outcomes so that researchers can develop treatments to prevent any negative effects.

Childhood cancer survivors are at risk for developing long term health problems including heart disease. Dr. Ruble's research finds ways to make survivors healthy by participating in physical activity. Currently less than 50 percent of survivors participate in adequate amounts of exercise, which increases the risk of developing health problems. This project aims to find out the best way to support survivors in changing behaviors and being healthy.

Even though more and more children are being cured of cancer, the treatment can cause major life-long health problems for survivors. Unfortunately, most adult survivors don't seek appropriate medical care to monitor and care for these problems. This project is to study whether or not adult survivors referred to adult-focused follow-up care actually engage in such care and what might get in the way of doing so. The results of the study will help medical providers better prepare young adult survivors to engage in adult-focused follow-up care to assure that they stay as healthy as possible.

Cancer therapy for childhood leukemia is often successful, but not without side effects. Pancreatitis, characterized by severe abdominal pain and inability to digest food, is a severe side effect seen in some children but not others who are similarly treated for leukemia. This side effect is sometimes fatal, and very often causes significant delays in continuing with treatment. This research is to learn the reasons why some children are more likely to develop this side effect than others, with the goal of helping all patients avoid it.

About 80% of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer become long-term survivors. About half of them develop therapy-induced hearing loss that is cumulative and irreversible. Most at risk are patients with brain tumors, neuroblastomas, osteosarcomas, soft tissue sarcomas, retinoblastomas, hepatoblastomas, or germ cell tumors who need to be treated with cisplatin, combinations of cisplatin and carboplatin, radiation to the head and neck, or combinations of platins and radiation. Therapy-induced hearing loss adversely affects speech and language development, reading ability, communication, academic performance and psychosocial development. It frequently causes stress, social isolation, low self-esteem, and low overall quality of life. This project explores the use of moderate to high doses of dietary selenium as means to reduce or prevent cisplatin-induced hearing loss.

Although most children with leukemia can be cured, chemotherapy frequently causes permanent brain dysfunction in survivors. With previous support from St. Baldricks, Dr. Cole's lab identified promising protective interventions, and he will now test them among those children at greatest risk for brain damage. To identify this population researchers are studying whether variation in neurocognitive function among leukemia survivors is related to specific inherited differences in genes related to repair mechanisms or to metabolism of drugs thought to cause cognitive deficits.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Comprehensive Approach to Improve Medication Adherence in Pediatric ALL. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Comprehensive Approach to Improve Medication Adherence in Pediatric ALL. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common pediatric soft tissue sarcoma. The two main subtypes, embryonal and alveolar, are defined by their appearance under the microscope. However, identification of a unique gene mutation in alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma identifies a subgroup with worse prognosis. Future studies may use this gene mutation rather than microscopic appearance to determine risk stratification and treatment, but before instituting this strategy researchers must confirm the role of fusion status in low-risk and metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma. This consortium is examining low-risk and high-risk clinical trials of the COG (Children's Oncology Group) to confirm the importance of fusion status in determining treatment for patients with rhabdomyosarcoma. Awarded at Oregon Health & Science University and transferred to Seattle Children's Hospital.

One of 5 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia suffers a relapse within 5 years of diagnosis. Also, Hispanic and African American children are more likely to relapse. Research has shown that 44% of the children are non-adherent to oral chemotherapy and that non-adherence is associated with an increased risk of relapse. This consortium has created a comprehensive package of interventions to improve adherence to oral chemotherapy. It is believed that this improvement in adherence will directly translate into an improvement in survival and a higher number of children cured of their cancer. Awarded at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope and transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Funds administered by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Prognostic significance of gene fusion in low or high risk rhabdomyosarcoma. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Comprehensive Approach to Improve Medication Adherence in Pediatric ALL. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Prognostic significance of gene fusion in low or high risk rhabdomyosarcoma. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Prognostic significance of gene fusion in low or high risk rhabdomyosarcoma. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Prognostic significance of gene fusion in low or high risk rhabdomyosarcoma. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Prognostic significance of gene fusion in low or high risk rhabdomyosarcoma. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Comprehensive Approach to Improve Medication Adherence in Pediatric ALL. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.

This institution is a member of a research consortium which is being funded by St. Baldrick's: Comprehensive Approach to Improve Medication Adherence in Pediatric ALL. For a description of this project, see the consortium grant made to the lead institution: the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.

Based on progress to date, Dr. Davis was awarded a new grant in 2014 to fund an optional third year of this fellowship. Cancer affects teenagers and young adults more often than young children, but these in-between aged people have lower survival rates than yonger children. There aren't many doctors that specialize in treating these patients, but that is exactly what Dr. Davis is training to do. As part of this training, she is studying a bone cancer that occurs in teens. This same cancer affects pet dogs, too. She is testing drugs in a lab to see which ones kill the most tumor cells and then investigatimg why they work, in hopes that it will help both kids and dogs with this tumor live longer.

Adaptive cell therapy involves engineering the body's own immune cells, called T-cells, to fight cancer. The T-cells are engineered to target a protein which is present only in the cancer cells, but not in normal cells. One such protein, WT-1 is expressed only in leukemia cells and has proven to be an effective target, for a specific type of T cells called CD8 T-cells. However, these CD8 T-cells do not persist and leukemias recur. Dr. Anur Praveen, PartnerRe St. Baldrick's Fellow, is studying whether another type of T-cells called CD4 T-cells alone can eradicate leukemia or these CD4 T cells can help the CD8 T-cells to last longer and fight leukemia without recurrence. This grant is named for PartnerRe, a global reinsurance company who has raised over $1 million to fund childhood cancer research through the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.