Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc. Partners with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to Support Early Career Childhood Cancer Researchers

In a continuing effort in the fight against childhood cancer, Rockland awarded the Joy Cappel Young Investigator Award (JCYIA) to two Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) Young Investigator grantees. In addition, Rockland is donating over $150,000 in reagents for the projects of ALSF Young Investigator and ‘A’ Award grantees with active grants.

The JCYIA includes the development of customized polyclonal antibodies by Rockland to further the research of Abhinav Dey, PhD (Young Investigator 2015) and Asen Bagashev, PhD (Young Investigator 2016). Dey and Bagashev received the award at the ALSF Young Investigator Summit in Chicago in October. Dey is researching personalized treatments for pediatric brain tumors. Bagashev is researching targeted therapies for relapsed B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The JCYIA, named in honor of former Rockland president and CEO Joy Cappel, is intended to foster research conducted by a promising post-doctoral fellow, graduate student or young investigator performing research in the areas of oncology, nuclear signaling, developmental biology, epigenetics, immunology, microbiology, neuroscience, signal transduction or stem cell technology. This award is in the form of a free-of-charge custom polyclonal antibody development project from Rockland.

Researchers investigating novel targets face a difficult hurdle when antibodies to their target are not commercially available. The JCYIA program gives researchers the opportunity to design a unique polyclonal antibody specific to their research, often resulting in a successful journal publication. Additionally, Rockland makes the antibody available to other researchers after validation as part of Rockland’s catalog antibody collection.

Since inception, ALSF has worked diligently to attract young doctors to the field of pediatric oncology, recognizing that these researchers hold future keys to better treatments and ultimately cures to end childhood cancers. The Young Investigator and ‘A’ Award grants reflect this belief. In addition to the two, ALSF funds several other grant categories to researchers on the front lines of the childhood cancer fight.  For more information, visit: www.ALSFgrants.org.