St. Baldrick's Foundation Awards New Round of Grants to Fund the Next Generation of Pediatric Oncologists

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Mar 15, 2021, 09:00 ET

LOS ANGELES, March 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The St. Baldrick's Foundation, the largest non-government funder of childhood cancer research grants, has granted three St. Baldrick's Fellow Awards totaling more than $573,000 to institutions across the country. Since 2005, St. Baldrick's has put a high priority on building the pipeline of pediatric researchers by funding the next generation of childhood cancer research experts whose work may lead to new and innovative therapies for kids with cancer.

St. Baldrick's Fellow grants provide two to three years of research funding to young doctors training to become pediatric oncology researchers. This grant provides them with protected time in the lab to learn new skills under the guidance of a mentor, launching new research careers and paving the way to a lifetime of discovering new cures for childhood cancers.

St. Baldrick's dedication to provide funding to support the most promising research and to train early career scientists has not wavered, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the inception of the program, more than 144 St. Baldrick's Fellows have launched their research careers.

"Many North American research labs were shut down in 2020 from mid-March through late summer or early fall, and many labs are still only operating at 25% capacity, so research progress has slowed," said Kathleen Ruddy, St. Baldrick's Foundation CEO. "Further, many funders have shifter their support to COVID. Little funding is available for childhood cancer research compared to other medical sciences. The problem is so extreme that it's hard to attract new researchers to the field, and the medical community is at risk of a shortage of researchers to carry on the work. St. Baldrick's is encouraging people to get involved now or make a donation to sustain research for kids with cancer."

The following principal investigators are receiving a St. Baldrick's Fellow grant:

Jessica Tsai, M.D., Ph.D., at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass., is receiving a St. Baldrick's Fellow Grant to study a deadly type of pediatric brain tumor. While looking at genes that are turned on or turned off in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), Dr. Tsai found a gene called FOXR2 that is turned on in a subset of these tumors. The goal of this project is to figure out exactly how FOXR2 makes DIPGs grow and to identify strategies that can be used in new treatments to target FOXR2.
Matthew Kudek, M.D., at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisc., is receiving a St. Baldrick's Fellow Grant for immunotherapy research for neuroblastoma. Dr. Kudek and colleagues have pioneered an innovative technique to boost CAR T cell therapy response. They have shown that the cancer-destroying function of reprogrammed immune cells is boosted when a weakened infection is introduced into a tumor. They also discovered that this treatment combination in bladder cancer led to cure in most of the disease models. Based on these findings, Dr. Kudek is pursuing proof-of-principle studies to determine how this treatment approach can be best applied to neuroblastoma treatment.
Lisa Niswander, M.D., Ph.D., at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa., is receiving a St. Baldrick's Fellow Grant to create new treatments that are more personalized for each child's leukemia cells. Dr. Niswander and colleagues are studying the best ways to combine these new treatments for two kinds of high-risk pediatric leukemias, since two treatments that work in different ways are often better than one.

Since 2005, St. Baldrick's has granted more than $306 million to support the development of childhood cancer treatments that have the potential to impact every kid diagnosed with cancer.

St. Baldrick's continues to fund the best childhood cancer research so that kids can live longer and healthier lives, no matter what's going on in the world. Join St. Baldrick's in filling the ever-growing funding gap for kids with cancer so that they have a lifetime to live. You can fundraiser, donate, and advocate for kids with cancer. Connect with St. Baldrick's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

About St. Baldrick's Foundation
Every 2 minutes a child somewhere in the world is diagnosed with cancer. In the U.S., 1 in 5 will not survive. The St. Baldrick's Foundation, the largest non-government funder of childhood cancer research grants, is on a mission to give kids a lifetime by supporting the most promising research to find cures and better treatments for all childhood cancers. When you give to St. Baldrick's, you don't just give to one institution – you support virtually every institution with the expertise to treat kids with cancer across the U.S. St. Baldrick's ensures that children fighting cancer now -- and those diagnosed in the future -- will have access to the most cutting-edge treatment, by supporting every stage of research, from new ideas in the lab to the development of new therapies, to life-saving clinical trials. Join us at StBaldricks.org and help #GiveKidsaLifetime.

SOURCE St. Baldrick's Foundation