Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Wynnewood, PA (April 24, 2009) – Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) for Childhood Cancer today announced the awarding of nearly $4 million in new pediatric cancer research grants. The medical grants will extend to 18 institutions and universities in 13 states across the country, totaling 26 new grants. The Foundation 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, imploring the expertise of 33 leading scientists from across the country. The current grant cycle released awards in three categories: Young Investigator, Innovation, and Program Infrastructure. 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: Aurora, CO; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Cincinnati, OH; Durham, NC; Honolulu, HI; Kansas City, MO; Nashville, TN; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Rochester, NY; Salt Lake City, UT; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC.

“I believe the work Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is funding at the University of Rochester will help us to understand how to reduce the risk of leukemia relapsing after bone marrow transplantation,” says Craig A. Mullen, MD, PhD. “We will work to get the science done well, and be good stewards of the funds the foundation is providing.”

Following in the footsteps of Foundation creator, Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who insisted that “all children want their tumors to go away,” the Foundation strives to fund research projects that focus on a number of childhood cancers. Within the scope of the 2009 pediatric oncology grants are projects focusing on: medulloblastoma, Ewing’s sarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, gliomas, leukemias and more.

“Last year marked the completion of the Foundation’s first full 2-year grant cycle, and we were so pleased to see the programs Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation funded making a difference in the childhood cancer world,” says Jay Scott, Alex’s father. “Alex herself was vigilant that if we worked together, we could move toward a cure. She was certainly right, and the funding of these projects is leading the way to one day eradicating childhood cancer.”

“By supporting pediatric cancer research, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation is helping us move more rapidly to the day that cures become a reality for 100% of children diagnosed with cancer," says David G. Poplack, MD, Director, Texas Children’s Cancer Center.

This grant cycle focuses on three types of grants:

• 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 who speed 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.

(A complete list of grant recipients can be found on the following page)

The Foundation also funds Nurse Research Grants, Epidemiology Grants, Travel Fund Grants, and soon the “A” Award. In 2008, research funded by ALSF was featured in The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature.

For more information on the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation grant programs, visit
http://www.AlexsLemonade.org/grants

About Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation:
Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of cancer patient Alexandra “Alex” Scott (1996-2004). At the age of 4, Alex announced that she wanted to hold a lemonade stand to raise money to help find a cure for all children with cancer. Since Alex held that first stand, the Foundation bearing her name has evolved into a national fundraising movement, complete with thousands of volunteers across the country carrying on her legacy of hope. To date, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a registered 501(c)3 charity, has raised more than $25 million towards fulfilling Alex’s dream of finding a cure, funding over 100 research projects nationally including those examining leukemia, brain tumors, neuroblastoma, Wilm's tumor, lymphoma, and osteosarcoma among others.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation 2009 Grant Recipients

Innovation Awards 2009

Children’s Hospital of Boston, Boston, MA
Investigating the role of lin-28 in germ cell tumorigenesis
Dr. George Daley

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
Epigenetic manipulation of leukemia
Dr. H. Leighton Grimes

Duke University, Durham, NC
Metabolic control of p53 activation in T-ALL
Dr. Jeffrey Rathmell

Duke University, Durham, NC
Modeling anaplastic medulloblastoma using cerebellar stem cells
Dr. Robert Wechsler-Reya

Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Targeted regulation of acetylation as novel therapy for Ewing's sarcoma
Dr. Jeffrey Toretsky

Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT
Molecular diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic approaches toward Ewing's sarcoma
Dr. Stephen Lessnick

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Linking mitogenic sonic hedgehog signaling to the oncogene Yap 1 in neural stem/progenitor cells and medulloblastoma
Dr. Anna Kenney

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Pharmacogenomics of childhood AML susceptibility and treatment response
Dr. Richard Aplenc

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
BH3 profiling to define therapy resistance classes in neuroblastoma
Dr. Michael Hogarty

University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Adaptation of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) to the post-transplant allogeneic environment
Dr. Craig Mullen

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
Targeting wnt in synovial sarcoma models
Dr. Josiane Eid

Program Infrastructure Awards 2009

Children’s Hospital of Denver, Aurora, CO
Expanding access to new agents for children with refractory cancers: the experimental therapeutics program at Children's Hospital of Colorado
Dr. Lia Gore

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
Development of a childhood leukemia translational research program
Dr. Lewis Silverman

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Biology-based clinical trials for children with cancer
Dr. Rochelle Bagatell

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
Pediatric oncology translational research program
Dr. James Whitlock

Young Investigator Awards 2009

Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI
DFMO-based combination therapy for the treatment of advanced stage neuroblastoma
Dr. Dana-Lynn Koomoa

Children’s Mercy, Kansas City, MO
MLL-based chromosomal translocations in the pathogenesis of childhood leukemia
Dr. Erin Guest

Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC
Immune stimulatory antigen loaded particles (ISAPS) for the treatment of solid childhood tumors
Dr. Suzanne Miles

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
Identification of proteins interacting with ALK in neuroblastoma
Dr. Rani George

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
Genetic regulators of ER stress-induced apoptosis in pediatric malignancies
Dr. Ujwal Pyati

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Aberrant DNA methylation in Ewing’s sarcoma
Dr. Scott Borinstein

Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT
GSTM4, a novel target for treating Ewing's sarcoma
Dr. Wen Luo

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Identification of FDA approved drugs with anti-tumor activity in rhabdomyosarcoma
Dr. David Langenau

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Exploring a novel immunotherapy: cooperation of endogenous CD8+ t-cells and exogenous, allogeneic CD4+ t-cells
Dr. Heather Symons

University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Identifying novel biomarkers for risk stratification in t-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia(ALL)
Dr. Michelle Hermiston

University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Optimizing EGFR targeted therapy in pediatric malignant glioma
Dr. Theodore Nicolaides