Mario Otto, M.D, Ph.D. wins award from childhood cancer nonprofits
PHILADELPHIA, PA (March 2013) – Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer (ALSF) and the I Care I Cure Childhood Cancer Foundation are teaming up to award a grant to Mario Otto, M.D., Ph.D of the University of Wisconsin for his work examining neuroblastoma. Otto will receive a Young Investigator Award ($100,000).
Alex’s Lemonade Stand and the I Care I Cure Foundation share a vision of finding better treatments and ultimately cures for all childhood cancers. Dating back to 2009, the Foundations have been collaborating to co-fund research grants. I Care I Cure supports the development of, and raises public awareness about, cutting-edge, targeted therapies for childhood cancer, so that the treatment of childhood cancer will be gentler and more tolerable. After reviewing Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation’s grantees annually, I Care I Cure identifies researchers whose progress toward improving the treatment of childhood cancers merit its support.
Dr. Otto’s Young Investigator Grant, which is designed to fill the critical need for start up funds for less experienced researchers to pursue promising research ideas, will work toward identifying more targeted treatments for neuroblastoma to lessen the long-term side effects of highly toxic treatments. More specifically, Otto and his team will look at the small molecule NM404 to perform pre-clinical tests to find out if NM404 can kill neuroblastoma or other forms of childhood cancer and to evaluate if this compound could be a new, potent treatment drug.
“It is an honor to be working alongside I Care I Cure toward a common goal of curing childhood cancer, and doing that in a manner that preserves the quality of life for children long-term” said Jay Scott, Alex’s father. “Having a child who fought cancer for nearly her entire life, we saw firsthand the impact of treatment on a young child. We hope that through this collaboration we can move closer to cures, and do so with safer, less-toxic treatments.”
“I Care I Cure is likewise honored to collaborate with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and appreciates ALSF’s support of our mission,” says Beth Besner, the mother of Ian Besner in whose memory I Care I Cure was established. “Having lost our son to the side effects of toxic cancer treatments, we believe so strongly that gentler treatments will save lives and make long-term survival more tolerable for children who have battled cancer.”
In addition to the project of Dr. Otto, three other awards will be given collaboratively as part of the ALSF and I Care I Cure partnership. The recipients are Dr. David Pellman and Julia Etchin of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Dr. Sarah Tasian of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
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.
For more information on the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation grant programs, visit
www.ALSFgrants.org
