Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Foundation to Distribute Over $5 Million in Awards to Fund Pediatric Oncology Research

Wynnewood, PA (May 2010) – In its 10th Anniversary Year, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) for Childhood Cancer announced the awarding of $5 million in new pediatric cancer research grants. The medical grants will extend to 26 institutions and universities in 17 states across the country, totaling 34 new grants. The Foundation, which started in Alexandra “Alex” Scott’s front yard in 2000, is dedicated to continuing the development and testing of new treatments as well as the improvement of availability of clinical trials, and most importantly finding cures for all childhood cancers.

ALSF utilizes a specially designed grant review process, calling upon the expertise of 58 leading scientists from across the country. The current grant cycle released awards in four categories: Epidemiology, Innovation, Program Infrastructure and Young Investigator. Working directly with doctors and researchers to identify specific ways to make a difference in childhood cancer research now, the grant recipients were chosen at top research hospitals in: Atlanta, GA: Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Cincinnati, OH; Denver, CO; Durham, NC; Gainesville, FL; Houston, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Kansas City, MO; Memphis, TN; New Haven, CT; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Rochester, NY; San Antonio, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Wilmington, DE.

“The infrastructure grant from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation will allow us to move new therapeutics from the laboratory to the bedside,” says award recipient Cliona Rooney, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine. “We have developed highly specific immune therapies for children with cancers including osteosarcoma, medulloblastoma and glioblastoma that should have far fewer side effects than current treatments.”

Following in the footsteps of Foundation creator, Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who insisted that “all children want their tumors to go away,” Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation strives to fund research projects that focus on all types of childhood cancers, not just the type that Alex had. Within the scope of the 2010 pediatric oncology grants are projects focusing on: brain tumors, Ewing’s sarcoma, glioblastoma, leukemias, neuroblastoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma.

“We are proud to continue our daughter Alex’s mission of finding a cure for all childhood cancer through our 2010 Grant Cycle,” says Jay Scott, Alex’s dad. “This year’s applicant pool was the most competitive to date, and we are pleased to be able to award more funding in our 10th Anniversary Year than in any year prior.”

“The quality of applications submitted to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation has continued to increase in quality and in numbers,” says Robert J. Arceci, of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and member of ALSF’s Scientific Advisory Board. “It is incredibly inspiring to see that there are so many investigators with such imagination and skill working on the problem of childhood cancer. The dream of Alex is certainly moving in the right direction.”
This grant cycle focuses on four types of grants:

• Epidemiology Awards designed to support the research of investigators who have a specific focus on the epidemiology of childhood cancer, early detection of childhood cancer, or the prevention of childhood cancer.
• Innovation Awards providing critical and significant seed funding designed for experienced investigators with a novel and promising approach to finding causes and cures for childhood cancers.
• Program Infrastructure Awards providing funding for support personnel or critical equipment which results in speeding up the process of enrolling children with cancer in clinical trials.
• Young Investigator Awards designed to fill the critical need for start up funds for new researchers and physicians to pursue promising research ideas.

The Foundation also funds Nurse Research Grants, Travel Fund Grants, and new in 2010, the “A” Award. Research funded by ALSF has been featured in The New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Molecular Therapy, AACR Journal, Oncogene, Nature and more.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation 2010 Grant Recipients

Epidemiology Awards 2010

Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT
Joshua Schiffman
Comprehensive Analysis of Risk Factors for Pediatric Cancers Using the Utah Population Database

Innovation Awards 2010

University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX
Patricia Dahia
Understanding the Role of a Novel Hereditary Cancer Gene

Duke University, Durham, NC
Motonari Kondo
Pathogenesis of T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia from Myeloproliferative Disorder

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
James Mulloy
Novel Therapeutic Target in Leukemia Stem Cells

Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, DE
Andrew Napper
Discovery of Inhibitors of MLL Fusion Proteins as Targeted Therapies for Pediatric Acute Leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
David Pellman
Identification of New Therapeutic Targets in Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Through Mosaic Trisomy and Aneuploidy-Based Synthetic Lethality Screens

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Robert Seeger
Predicting Outcome for Patients with Metastatic Neuroblastoma by Analysis of Bone Marrow and Blood for a Neuroblastoma Gene Expression Signature

Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO
Ali Shilatifard
Identification of the Molecular Targets of MLL Translocation-Based Childhood Leukemia

The Children’s Hospital of Philadephia, Philadelphia, PA
Andrei Thomas-Tikhonenko
In-UTR Mutations in Neuroblastoma: Functional Consequences and Therapeutic Implications

University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA
David Traver
Modeling Pediatric Leukemia in Zebra Fish to Enable Discovery of New Anti-Leukemic Compounds

Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT
Nikolaus Trede
Detecting Genetic and Genomic Perturbations in T Cell ALL

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Marcel van den Brink
Targeting Neovascularization in Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Yong Xiong
Elucidating the Initiation Mechanism of the Fanconi Anemia Pathway of DNA Damage Repair

Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Weimin Zhong
Treating Brain Tumor by Changing Cell Division Pattern

Program Infrastructure Awards 2010

Seattle Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, WA
Russ Geyer
Improving Development of and Patient Access to Early Phase Pediatric Cancer Clinical Trials

Columbia University, New York, NY
Julia Glade Bender
A New York Based Pediatric Oncology Developmental Therapeutics Program

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
Howard Katzenstein
Expansion of the Innovative Therapies Program to Include the Development of a Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Translational Research Program

University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Katherine Matthay
131 I-MIBG Imaging and Therapy for Neuroblastoma: Infrastructure Proposal

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Cliona Rooney
Center for Pediatric T Cell Therapy (CEPET)

University of Florida, Shands Children’s Hospital, Gainesville, FL
Amy Smith
Expanding Hope: Innovative Therapy at Shands Children's Hospital

Young Investigator Awards 2010

University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Danielle Benoit
Targeted Polymeric Parthenolide Carriers to Treat Childhood AML

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Kara Davis
Single Cell Signaling Profiles in High-Risk Pediatric Leukemia

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
Scott Diede
The Role of DNA Methylation in Pediatric Cancer

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Pascal Duijf
The p53-Mad2-Genomic Stability Pathway in the Development of Childhood Malignancies

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
Simone Hettmer
Identification of Novel Treatment Targets by Exploring the Interaction of Rhabdomyosarcoma-Associated Oncogenes with Cellular Context in a Mouse Model of Rhabdomyosarcoma

University of Colorado, Denver, CO
Paul Jedlicka
MicroRNAs 100 and 125b in Ewing’s Sarcoma

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Roddy O’Connor
Determining the Oncogenic Role and Clinical Significance of the Polycistronic miRNA-17-92 Cluster in Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Selvi Ramasamy
TLE1 Tumor Suppressor as a Key Regulator of myc Induced Leukemia

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Eric Schafer
Promoter Hypermethylation in MLL-Rearranged Leukemias: Biology and Therapeutic Targeting

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Angela Sievert
Characterization and Targeting of Novel Activating BRAF Mutations in Pediatric Brain Tumors

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
Pin-Yi Wang
Virotherapy on Primary Neuroblastoma Cells

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Hon-Kit Wong
Identification and Characterization of an Epigenetic Program that Maintains the Self-Renewal of MLL Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN
Jun Yang
The Role of PDE4B in Racial Disparities in Outcome of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Rushdia Yusuf
The Role of Metabolism in MLL-AF9 Leukemia Initiation