Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and The Swifty Foundation Team Up to Fund Childhood Cancer Research

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) has partnered with the Swifty Foundation to fund two pediatric brain tumor research projects. ALSF and the Swifty Foundation share a vision of funding childhood cancer research to ultimately find cures for all children with cancer. The Swifty Foundation’s donation to ALSF will help fund Eric Raabe, MD/PhD and Barbara Slusher, PhD of The Johns Hopkins University of Medicine and Melanie Vincent, PhD of University of Colorado Denver.

The Swifty Foundation was created to fund pediatric brain cancer research, in honor of Michael Gustafson. In 2013, Michael died at age 15 of medulloblastoma. Prior to his death, his parents Allen and Patti decided to use the money they would have invested in his life for education, support and inheritance to start a foundation. Michael was charged with choosing the mission and name. Every dollar raised is invested directly into pediatric brain cancer research.

Dr. Raabe and Dr. Slusher’s project will develop drugs to specifically target the protein MYC in a subgroup of medulloblastoma patients. They’ve already discovered a drug called DON was shown to slow tumor growth. They will modify and alter DON to make it easier to administer and be more effective. Dr. Vincent is researching an immunotherapy for medulloblastoma. She has found that targeting Eya2, typically used in breast cancer research, can slow tumor growth and is less toxic for medulloblastoma patients. Detailed descriptions of each project are on the following page. 

"The Swifty Foundation is grateful to have Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to partner with as we seek out the best investments in childhood cancer research,” said Patti Gustafson, executive director of the Swifty Foundation. “The expertise, professionalism and passion of ALSF gives Swifty confidence that we are serving both our donors and the children we so desperately want better outcomes for."

For more information about Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation’s charity partnerships, visit AlexsLemonade.org/grants/charity-partners.

RESEARCH SUMMARIES

Dr. Eric Hutton Raabe, MD/PhD & Dr. Barbara Slusher, PhD, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine            

Pre-clinical Testing of Novel Glutamine Metabolic Inhibitors in MYC-driven Medulloblastoma

 

Dr. Melanie Vincent, PhD, University of Colorado Denver

Targeting Eya2 to Inhibit c-Myc Driven Medulloblastoma Tumor Progression