Monthly Supper Club supports CureSearch for Children’s Cancer 

Holly Springs, N.C. – September 28, 2023 – Pimiento Tea Room, a unique tea house and restaurant in downtown Holly Springs, has raised more than $37,000 this year for CureSearch for Children’s Cancer, supporting pediatric cancer research.  

In 2020, Matt and Christy Griffith transformed a historic 180-year-old farmhouse into the Holly Springs’ award-winning Pimiento Tea Room. Shortly after opening, the couple launched the monthly Supper Club, a seven-course event that features adventurous cuisine with a Southern twist. Proceeds are donated to CureSearch to help fund lifesaving research. 

The couple presented the check on September 25th to commemorate Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, a month very special to the Griffith family.  

“Our youngest child, Eve, was diagnosed with anaplastic bilateral Wilms Tumor in 2009 when she was two years old. That was the worst day of our lives,” said Christy. “When you hear the word cancer, but don’t yet have a plan, it’s easy to feel helpless and imagine the most unfavorable outcome.” 

Eve is now cancer free and like so many childhood cancer survivors, she is at risk for lifelong side effects from treatment. CureSearch is dedicated to ensuring every child with cancer has a safe and effective treatment option, and the chance to live a long, healthy life. 

“The industry average for preclinical research moving into clinical trials is 8%. CureSearch has seen 60% of their funded pre-clinical research projects move into clinical trials within the last 10 year, said Chris Morton, chair of the CureSearch Community Leadership Board in the Triangle Area. “And their projects make it to clinical trials 1.5 times faster than the national average. That speed is critical for kids now facing cancers with limited treatment options.”  

CureSearch hosts multiple events across the country to raise funds for children’s cancer research, such as the Foothills Spring Ultimate Hike on April 20, 2024. This life-changing adventure gives hikers and supporters the chance to hike the Foothills Trail in South Carolina, while honoring and supporting children with cancer. To register, visit ultimatehike.org/foothills. 

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By Holly R. Zink, MSA, ACRP 

Cancer in children differs from cancer in adults, from DNA alterations to tumor origin. More than 15,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the U.S., and while new treatments — most often designed originally for adults — have increased overall survival rates, children often face longer, more intense treatment schedules. The need for tailored treatments is crucial.  

Clinical trials connect more patients to new therapies, saving more lives 

Current standard therapies for many childhood cancers are over 30 years old and have lifelong, toxic, and debilitating side effects. Treatment-related toxicities lead to secondary cancers, organ damage, early onset heart failure, and cognitive and growth deficits that undermine their future health, happiness, and longevity. 

Despite this, pediatric clinical trials lag behind adult trials by an average of 6.5 years, leading to countless child casualties. Urgent action is needed. 

Translational research is not always making it into the clinic 

When it comes to research, a serious and detrimental funding gap exists in the “valley of death,” wherein new research discoveries fail to actually progress the clinic. It’s critical that good research is backed by the funding it needs in order to advance to  translational, preclinical, and early-phase clinical trials. This is why CureSearch is so laser-focused on funding promising, translational research with the greatest potential of becoming new treatments for kids with cancer. 

“People talk about survival rates for childhood cancer, but no one talks about what these children go through and the late effects and impact of their treatment,” said Kay Koehler, President and CEO of CureSearch. “Nonprofits are really all that we have to ensure that children can lead a long and healthy life.” 

Cutting-edge pediatric clinical trials bring hope to children who are otherwise out of options 

CureSearch is currently funding a Phase I clinical trial led by Drs. David Munn and Theodore Johnson. Their team is uncovering new ways to combat chemoimmunotherapy resistance in brain cancer patients aged 12-25, offering hope for those with limited options. The team’s trial design is highly innovative, exploring combination therapies’ efficacy in a single-arm Phase I design, leveraging their unique patient population. If this trial is successful, it could revolutionize treatment options for children with brain cancer. 

How can targeted funding advance research more rapidly?  

CureSearch focuses on funding projects with the potential to reach clinical trials within three years. CureSearch-funded research is extensively reviewed by our scientific and industry advisory councils, who collaborate to identify and overcome obstacles, resulting in a 7x higher rate of preclinical projects advancing to clinical trials. This means our funded preclinical projects move to the clinic 1.5x faster than the national average.  

This singular focus is critical in driving cutting-edge research out of the lab and into the clinic, providing new, safer treatments to the children who are counting on us. 

Support next-generation research today and help ensure that every child has a chance to live a long, healthy life. 

The post Fighting Childhood Cancer: Advancing Pediatric Clinical Trials  appeared first on CureSearch for Children's Cancer.

Share on social media 

Our Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (CCAM) Partner Toolkit contains social media posts and graphics, including a CCAM cover photo for Facebook and LinkedIn. Adding this cover photo to your page is a quick and easy way to show your support of CureSearch and children with cancer.

Additionally, we encourage you to share content directly from the CureSearch social media channels. Hitting that share button on posts helps to build our page followers and boost our post visibility. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter! 

Engage your partners, colleagues 

The toolkit also includes CureSearch overview flyers, explaining our mission and the impact of supporting CureSearch; and a corporate flyer outlining the various ways a company and its employees can get involved and raise awareness during CCAM. Feel free to use the CCAM email template when reaching out to your contacts. 

These are great materials to share with current or potential partners and encourage them to join us in making an impact during CCAM. 

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A closer look at Dr. VanHeyst’s osteosarcoma study 

The current standard treatment for osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, hasn’t changed much in decades. The chemotherapy that osteosarcoma patients receive is harsh, and the side effects are only magnified in children. Osteosarcoma is an aggressive cancer, and for patients with metastasis – cancer that has spread to other parts of the body – survival outcomes remain especially grim. 

With funding from her CureSearch award, Dr. Kristen VanHeyst is exploring a new treatment, called immunotherapy, for osteosarcoma. Immunotherapy has recently shown promise in other types of cancer, although it hasn’t been very effective for osteosarcoma so far. Research like that of Dr. VanHeyst and team is critical in cracking the code and eventually delivering a safer, more effective treatment for osteosarcoma patients. 

An Innovative Approach: Targeting an immune suppressive molecule 

Dr. VanHeyst’s team is focusing on a molecule called Transforming Growth Factor-Beta (TGF-ß), which is produced in tumors. This molecule makes the tumor grow and makes it harder for the patient’s immune system to fight against it. 

Dr. VanHeyst wants to target TGF-ß, using the drug Vactosertib, to slow tumor growth and help the immune system fight against the cancer. She and her colleagues have demonstrated that the drug can slow down the growth of cancer in mice with weak immune systems. However, complete disease control has not yet been achieved. Dr. VanHeyst hypothesizes that combining the drug with another type of treatment, called an immune checkpoint blockade, might work better.  

The immune checkpoint blockade is a special treatment that helps our immune system fight cancer by blocking signals that cancer cells use to hide. When these signals are blocked, our immune system becomes better at finding and attacking the cancer cells. It’s like taking off a disguise that the cancer cells wear, so our immune system can see them clearly and fight them off. This type of treatment has been helpful in some other types of cancers, and many scientists have recently been studying it more in order to understand how it can be used to help even more patients. 

Dr. VanHeyst will also lead a clinical trial to test the treatment plan on children with osteosarcoma. The team is working with a pharmaceutical company, called MedPacto, Inc., to develop the trial. They will start by testing Vactosertib alone to ensure it is safe and effective. If it looks promising, they will then try combining it with the immune checkpoint blockade. They will closely study the patients’ response to the treatment with the goal of improving survival rates. They will also collect samples from the patients to study their genes and proteins to better understand how the treatment is working. Dr. VanHeyst is working to ultimately lower the age limit for enrollment in clinical trials, and give more pediatric patients access to novel therapeutic options. 

Ultimately, the researchers hope that the drug Vactosertib, either alone or in combination with another drug, will provide a more hopeful outlook for patients with osteosarcoma. These types of learnings can be pivotal in driving breakthroughs in cancer treatment, now and in the future. 

The post Research Blog: Seeking a More Effective Treatment for Osteosarcoma   appeared first on CureSearch for Children's Cancer.

A closer look at Dr. Elvin Wagenblast’s AML study

Leukemia is the most common type of cancer in children. Even before a child is born, genes can undergo changes that are linked to the development of leukemia. There is a specific type of leukemia called acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that has unique gene changes, including when two genes called NUP98 and NSD1 combine. About 15% of children with AML have this gene fusion, and it makes their prognosis worse. Sometimes, another gene, called WT1, also has changes in cases of AML where children experience chemotherapy-resistance. 

Doctors and scientists are not yet sure why this type of leukemia doesn’t respond well to treatment. In studies with mice, they observe mixed results when trying to recreate this leukemia. 

To understand this leukemia better and find new treatments, Dr. Elvin Wagenblast will create a special model that imitates the gene changes found in patients. His team is going to use different types of human blood cells to see how leukemia develops and if it can resist standard chemotherapy. They will study the genes and molecules involved and find ways to stop the leukemia from growing. The goal is to identify targets for new treatments that can be tested in more studies and help improve the lives of children with AML and their families. 

A Novel Technique: Dr. Wagenblast is working to create better treatments 

His team will use a special technique called CRISPR/Cas9 to study leukemia in the lab using normal blood cells. This will help him understand how the disease grows and changes over time. By trying new experiments, he hopes to find out why children get leukemia and develop new ways to treat it. 

Think of genes as a recipe book that tells your body how to grow and function. Sometimes, there may be mistakes in the recipe that cause health problems. CRISPR/Cas9 is a tool that allows scientists to edit the recipe book. It’s a new technology that has shown a lot of promise in helping us understand and potentially treat genetic diseases in the future. 

By using CRISPR/Cas9, scientists can remove or add specific pieces of the genetic code. This can help them study how genes work, find out which genes are linked to certain diseases, or even try to fix genetic disorders.  

Dr. Wagenblast’s work is supported by a CureSearch Young Investigator Award. With this support, he will try new and unique ways to figure out why leukemia happens in children. His ultimate goal is to make important progress in understanding and treating childhood leukemia, which will help many children with this disease.  

Your donation can help fund the next breakthrough in 2023 and beyond! Make a gift today and bring new treatments for the children who are counting on us.  

The post Research blog: Uncovering Why and How Pediatric Leukemia Develops  appeared first on CureSearch for Children's Cancer.

Dr. Patrick Grohar receives Fight Osteosarcoma Together Super Grant to address critical, unmet need in pediatric osteosarcoma treatment 

Bethesda, Md. – June 6, 2023 – CureSearch for Children’s Cancer announced today a three-year, $1.5 million grant to Patrick Grohar, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to develop a new targeted treatment approach for pediatric osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer.  

The award – the Fight Osteosarcoma Together Super Grant – is a joint funding award with St. Baldrick’s Foundation, CureSearch, Battle Osteosarcoma, Michael and April Egge; The Osteosarcoma Collaborative, and the Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund of Children’s Cancer Research Fund. 

“I have dedicated my life to the care of patients with bone tumors,” said Dr. Grohar. “My team has a history of translating therapies to pediatric bone tumor patients, and are now seeing responses in the clinic. The work proposed has the potential to be highly impactful for the patients we serve. Our group is honored and humbled to have been selected for this award.”  

Treatments for osteosarcoma haven’t changed in 30 years, and few targeted agents have successfully translated to the clinic for patients. Dr. Grohar’s team will study the role of the MYC gene, a common gene in osteosarcoma tumors, and determine how MYC makes osteosarcoma aggressive.  

If a novel and effective MYC inhibitor is developed as a result of this project, it could potentially improve the treatment of many cancers, including osteosarcoma. 

“Real progress in childhood cancer research requires collaboration, so we are honored to be a funding partner on this award,” said Holly Zink, Director of Research and Programs at CureSearch. “Dr. Grohar’s project aligns with our laser focus on addressing critical, unmet need in pediatric cancer treatment. We look forward to seeing the impact of this groundbreaking research on pediatric osteosarcoma patients who are counting on novel treatment options.” 

To learn more about how you can support innovative projects like this and help advance childhood cancer research, visit curesearch.org/donate. 

About CureSearch for Children’s Cancer 
CureSearch for Children’s Cancer, a national nonprofit organization that works to end childhood cancer by driving targeted and innovative research with measurable results in an accelerated time frame. Using a unique funding strategy, CureSearch only funds translational research projects with the strongest potential to become a new treatment and quickly reach patients. To learn more visit curesearch.org. 

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