Grant furthers research in pediatric brain tumors ? Colorado Cancer ...

Jean Mulcahy-Levy, MD

An investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center has earned a prestigious grant from the St. Baldrick?s Foundation to support her research into treatments for pediatric brain tumors. Jean Mulcahy-Levy, MD, an instructor in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at University of Colorado School of Medicine, has been named the ?ELOPE, Inc. St. Baldrick?s Scholar.?

Dr. Mulcahy-Levy will use the money to study autophagy, a multi-step process that cancer can use to survive. She wants to discover whether blocking this survival mechanism may make cancer easier to kill with other treatments like radiation and chemotherapy. If it does, outcomes for children with brain tumors may improve.

This project has three goals:

• Find which step of the autophagy process should be blocked to kill the most tumor cells
• Find which types of brain tumors depend most on autophagy to survive
• Determine if a specific genetic mutation found in some pediatric brain tumors can identify patients most likely to benefit from autophagy-directed treatments

Understanding how cancer cells die is important in designing new therapies and improving the effectiveness of currently used therapies to cure childhood cancers.

?Kids are not little adults, so it follows that therapies that work in adults may not be as effective in children,? said Mulcahy-Levy. ?Every child is difference and so is their cancer. We want to use this money to identify targeted therapies that will work for kids.?

Worldwide, more than 175,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year and it remains the leading cause of death by disease among children in the United States. With only 4 percent of all federal cancer research funding dedicated to pediatric cancer research, St. Baldrick?s Foundation grant funds are critical to continue the battle against this devastating disease.

Based in Colorado Springs, ELOPE, Inc. (Everybody?s Laughing On Planet Earth) sells a full line of fun accessories worldwide including the big green leprechaun hats it donates for St. Baldrick?s events.? The company has raised more than $1 million for the Foundation and is proud to support this grant.

?

?

Source: http://www.coloradocancerblogs.org/news/grant-furthers-research-in-pediatric-brain-tumors-2

alicia keys bobby brown leaves funeral donnie mcclurkin whitney houston funeral live stream kevin costner whitney houston whitney houston funeral live pat buchanan