childhood cancer Archives - Sanford Burnham Prebys

Tag: childhood cancer

Institute News

How community collaboration shapes leukemia research at Sanford Burnham Prebys

AuthorMiles Martin
Date

October 4, 2022

Rena Johnson, Ani Deshpande, PhD, and Todd Johnson holding a large cardboard check for $25,000 from the Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation

Since 2020, Todd and Rena Johnson, co-founders of the Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation (LTJF), have helped fund the research of Associate Professor Ani Deshpande, PhD

But it all started with their son Luke. He had a very rare subtype of acute myeloid leukemia, one of the most difficult-to-treat cancers, and, sadly, he passed away from the disease in 2016. This inspired the Johnsons to become involved with fundraising and advocacy for cancer research.

Luke Tatsu Johnson​
Luke Tatsu Johnson

“Our foundation started with a fundraising golf tournament to honor Luke, and that was about taking something so horrific and so horrible and finding a way to turn it into something positive,” says Rena. “If you can take that tragedy and put a positive spin on it, then everything around Luke and his name and his memory becomes positive.”
 

How “the stars and planets aligned” to bring the Johnsons to the Institute

In a remarkable coincidence, the Johnsons discovered on their first visit to the Institute that Deshpande’s research focuses on AF10 fusion AML, an extremely rare subtype of the disease that accounts for about 5 percent of cases. It’s also the subtype of AML that Luke had.

“It was a goosebumps-raising moment,” says Todd. “Once we visited Ani and saw his lab, we realized there was a lot more in common with our story and his research than we had realized before.”

“The stars and planets aligned and brought us to Ani,” adds Rena. 

As well as helping fund Deshpande’s research through LTJF and their partnership with the Rally! Foundation, the Johnsons are also on the Community Advisory Board (CAB) for the Institute’s Cancer Center, which advocates for cancer research by engaging the community. 

“The CAB does such a wonderful job of connecting the community with the scientists, and we’re so excited to be involved in that,” says Todd. “That’s fundamentally what we do as a foundation—we support the folks doing this work so that children and families down the road can have a different outcome from Luke’s.”
 

AML research “needs more support and needs more funding”

The Johnsons’ support helped the AML research team discover a new potential treatment for AML, which is currently in preclinical studies, after which they hope it will advance to clinical trials. The research team maintains that it would have been impossible to secure the NIH grants necessary to do these studies without the jump start given by the LTJF and the Rally! Foundation.

“We couldn’t do what we do without the Johnsons’ support,” says Deshpande. “We are so grateful to have them in our corner, and we’re confident that our work will help improve outcomes for kids like Luke down the line.”

Despite this progress, more research into AML and other leukemias is still needed. Leukemia is the most common cancer in children and teens. About 4,000 children are diagnosed with leukemia each year, and AML accounts for about a third of these cases.
 

Studying AML from all angles

To tackle this pressing problem, the Institute has established an AML disease team composed of researchers across labs and clinician partners. The team’s research falls into several large categories, including studying the genetics of AML, studying how the disease works in animal models and working to develop drugs that can target specific mutations associated with the disease, which are numerous. 

“AML has many different subtypes, so it’s been difficult for researchers to make major advances to treat all cases of AML,” says Deshpande, who co-leads the AML team with Professor Peter D. Adams, PhD “Most patients with AML are given the same treatments that have been used since the ’70s, which is why we want to look at AML from as many angles as possible.”

In addition to being difficult to treat, it is also challenging to get funding for AML research, particularly for the rarer subtypes. This makes the support of foundations such as LTJF even more vital to researchers like Deshpande. 

“This is exactly why AML research needs more support and needs more funding, because this is a much more difficult disease than other forms of leukemia,” says Todd. “Many patients don’t have positive outcomes, and the only way to turn that pendulum is to intensify our efforts and increase the amount of research being done.”

Institute News

Conrad Prebys Foundation provides $3 million for pediatric brain cancer research

AuthorSusan Gammon
Date

April 7, 2021

Conrad Prebys Foundation Award

Conrad Prebys was an extraordinary man and a passionate philanthropist. Today, his generosity extends beyond his life through the Conrad Prebys Foundation.

This year, the Foundation provided $3 million to Robert Wechsler-Reya, PhD, and his team of researchers to advance a potential drug to treat medulloblastoma—the most common malignant brain tumor in children.

Children with medulloblastoma often receive aggressive treatment (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy), but many still die of their disease, and survivors suffer long-term effects from therapy. Safer and more effective therapies are desperately needed.

Wechsler-Reya recently combined forces with Michael Jackson, PhD, senior vice president of Drug Discovery and Development, to find a drug(s) that would inhibit the growth of Group 3 medulloblastoma, the most aggressive form of the disease. Using high-throughput screening technology, they identified a compound that reduces levels of a protein called MYC, which is found at exceptionally high levels in Group 3 medulloblastoma, as well as in cancers of the blood, breast, lung and prostate.

“An effective MYC inhibitor could have a major impact on the survival and quality of life of patients with medulloblastoma,” says Wechsler-Reya. “We identified a compound that reduces levels of MYC in medulloblastoma cells, but now we need to learn how it works to optimize it as an anti-cancer drug and advance studies toward the clinic.

“Historically, pharmaceutical companies and funding agencies have under-invested in childhood cancers, and the majority of drugs currently used to treat these cancers were originally developed for adult cancer,” adds Wechsler-Reya. “We believe that effective drugs for pediatric brain tumors must be developed—and this award from the Foundation will help us achieve this goal.”

“We are profoundly grateful to Conrad for his generosity over the years,” says President Kristiina Vuori, MD, PhD “He has a special legacy at our Institute, which was renamed Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2015 to honor him. We are now thankful to his Foundation for including us in their inaugural grant cycle, and for supporting the critical work we do to benefit children and others suffering from cancer.”

The Conrad Prebys Foundation allocated $78 million in its inaugural grant cycle to fund 121 projects. The awards reflect areas of personal interest to Conrad Prebys—including visual and performing arts, higher education, health care, youth development and animal conservation.

Sanford Burnham Prebys joins a long list of recipients, which included other prominent San Diego institutions such as Rady Children’s Hospital, KPBS, San Diego State University, Scripps Research, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the La Jolla Music Society.

Institute News

West Coast meets East Coast: Dr. Wechsler-Reya makes special trip to thank students

AuthorMonica May
Date

July 17, 2019

Willam's Warriors and Robert Wechsler-Reya

In the summer of 2015, 5-year-old William Schultz began to experience odd and increasingly worrying symptoms, including frequent vomiting. After two emergency-room visits, doctors ushered his parents, Jim and Margaret Schultz, into a small office and gave an unimaginable diagnosis: William had a brain tumor, ultimately revealed as medulloblastoma—the most common malignant childhood brain cancer. Standard treatment proved ineffective. The tumor returned, and William later died due to treatment complications.

William’s parents quickly channeled their pain into action. Mr. and Mrs. Schultz launched William’s Warriors, a foundation that supports art therapy for all children battling cancer, both in and out of the hospital, and raises funds in support of a cure for pediatric brain cancer—the deadliest form of childhood cancer. Even with aggressive treatment, many children don’t survive, and those who do often suffer severe long-term side effects from the therapy. Half of the foundation’s fundraising goes to William’s Superhero Fund, which supports the work of Robert Wechsler-Reya, PhD, professor and director of the Tumor Initiation and Maintenance Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, and program director of the Clayes Center for Neuro-Oncology and Genomics at the Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine.

On May 31, 2019, Wechsler-Reya traveled to New York’s Bay Shore High School, where Mrs. Schultz teaches art—and many teachers and students volunteer with the foundation—to provide an update on his research. As part of his goal to develop safer and more effective treatments for pediatric brain cancer, his lab explores potential personalized treatments based on a child’s specific tumor type, nanotechnology approaches that improve drug delivery and immunotherapy to train patients’ immune systems to eradicate the cancer.

The Bay Shore Girls Basketball Team and Brother Sister Organization presented Wechsler-Reya with a donation of funds they raised in support of his research.​
The Bay Shore Girls Basketball Team and Brother Sister Organization presented Wechsler-Reya with a donation of funds they raised in support of his research.

The visit, organized by William’s Warriors volunteer and New York State Master Science Teacher Erin Garland, provided students with a unique opportunity to learn firsthand about the drug development process and how their funds directly impact medical research. During the trip, Wechsler-Reya addressed an assembly of students and teachers, attended a student-centered science symposium, met one-on-one with science students and participated in a question-and-answer session with STEAM teachers. Following his address, the Bay Shore Girls Basketball Team and Brother Sister Organization, presented Wechsler-Reya with a donation of funds they raised in support of his research.

“From the bottom of our hearts, we sincerely thank Dr. Wechsler-Reya for taking time out of his very busy schedule to make this visit. But, more importantly, we are grateful for his unwavering commitment to finding a cure for childhood brain cancer,” says Mrs. Schultz. “While William’s life couldn’t be saved, knowing that researchers are working to find a treatment that might help children like him means the absolute world to us.” 

Read William’s story

Donate to William’s Superhero Fund 

Institute News

New drug combination may lead to treatment for childhood brain cancer

AuthorJessica Moore
Date

March 14, 2016

Header image

Researchers at SBP have identified a new combination therapy for the most aggressive form of medulloblastoma, a fast growing type of pediatric brain cancer. The study, published  in Cancer Cell, is expected to lead to a clinical trial to confirm the benefits of the novel drug combination. Continue reading “New drug combination may lead to treatment for childhood brain cancer”