The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a volunteer-driven and donor-centered charity dedicated to raising money for childhood cancer research, awarded a one-year, $50,000 grant to Case Western Reserve University. This grant is one of 40 infrastructure grants awarded as part of the foundation’s fall grant cycle, totaling more than $2.5 million and surpassing last year’s total awarded during this same period.
Funding from the St. Baldrick’s Foundation will maintain pediatric and adolescent and young adult solid tumor cells inside a test model in order to closely mimic the condition experienced by these tumor cells inside the human body. This grant will support the critical personnel to shuttle precious tumor samples from the operating room at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital to the research laboratory at Case Western Reserve. Without dedicated resources to do so, these tumor samples are often discarded without the opportunity to study them in the context of the body.
“This grant will help us improve the next generation of immunotherapy for childhood and adolescent cancer patients,” said Alex Huang, associate professor of pediatrics and pathology and a member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. “With such limited funding for childhood and adolescent cancer research, we are very appreciative to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation for their support.”
This series of grants, combined with the more than $24.7 million awarded in July to fund cutting-edge research, brings the St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s funding total to more than $27.2 million awarded in 2014. Grants were awarded based on the need of the institution and its patients, anticipated results of the grant and local participation in St. Baldrick’s fundraising events and activities.
“These grants are critically important to saving children’s lives, and would not be possible without our dedicated volunteers and generous donors who believe kids deserve better than medicine is currently able to provide,” said Kathleen Ruddy, chief executive officer for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.
Information on how to get involved can be found at www.StBaldricks.org.