Brown Bag For A Cure is joining others across the country in the STAND UP TO CANCER campaign and invites you to join us!
Friday, September 5th @ 8pm (EST & PST) and 7pm (CST) the three major networks will air Stand Up To Cancer, a star-studded television event to raise money for cancer research.
Some ideas for the evening....
Host a viewing party! It’s a great way to bring your family and friends together. Set up your computer and your guests can make donations online while they watch.
For everyone fighting to end cancer, this is a must watch show.
E-mail all of your friends – join in, as we as a nation, Stand Up To Cancer...
To learn more about the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, visit Stand Up To Cancer
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will be a featured hospital as part of Stand Up 2 Cancer. Katie Couric and Abigail Breslin visited the hospital as part of the Stand Up 2 Cancer filming. Abigail met with patients, nurses, child life and others from 3south. She also filmed a public service announcement for Stand Up 2 Cancer in one patient's room.
Watch a video clip from the local news here.
Please register here... Once you are registered, go to the "Get Involved" Tab and click on "The Teams". From there you can search for a Team. Brown Bag For A Cure would be honored to have you on our TEAM.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
5 Minutes Could Mean $2.5 Million For Pediatric Brain Tumor Research
5 minutes of your time could mean up to $2.5million for pediatric brain tumor research...
The PLGA Foundation is in the running for a HUGE grant from American Express's philanthropic program. The hitch is that we need to get 10,000 people to NOMINATE the project BEFORE August 30th in order to be considered as a candidate for the funds.
This is where we need YOUR help. Nominating is EASY. Just four steps:
1) Go to American Express Members Project which will automatically bring you to the summary of the "Project Brain Child" project
2) Click the "NOMINATE PROJECT" button
3) Sign in (If you are an Amex cardmember use your ONLINE user name and password as if you were viewing your credit card statement. If you are not an Amex cardmember sign in as a "Guest")
4) Click on "Nominate Project" again to register your vote.
You are done! THIS TAKES 5 MINUTES TO COMPLETE.
For those of you who have time to do a little more.....when you are at Project Brain Childyou can also click on the "Discussion Board" link at the bottom of the page and write a message that tells American Express why this is so important. (For example, no funds available, current treatments are toxic and punishing, not to mention ineffective, etc.)
The ultimate thing you could do is reach out to your friends, colleagues, family, and any other groups where you might get the membership to vote for the project as well. (Feel free to also put the request on Facebook,MySpace, carepages, caringbridge, website, etc. page. and ask everyone to do the same.)
The goal is HUGE, but 'viral marketing' can work...if each one of us reaches out to their email contact lists. We stand a chance if we stand together!!!!
PLEASE, PLEASE help us get these funds for pediatric brain tumor research.
Thanks so much!
" Children with brain tumors should be able to fight for their dreams, not for their lives."
The PLGA Foundation is in the running for a HUGE grant from American Express's philanthropic program. The hitch is that we need to get 10,000 people to NOMINATE the project BEFORE August 30th in order to be considered as a candidate for the funds.
This is where we need YOUR help. Nominating is EASY. Just four steps:
1) Go to American Express Members Project which will automatically bring you to the summary of the "Project Brain Child" project
2) Click the "NOMINATE PROJECT" button
3) Sign in (If you are an Amex cardmember use your ONLINE user name and password as if you were viewing your credit card statement. If you are not an Amex cardmember sign in as a "Guest")
4) Click on "Nominate Project" again to register your vote.
You are done! THIS TAKES 5 MINUTES TO COMPLETE.
For those of you who have time to do a little more.....when you are at Project Brain Childyou can also click on the "Discussion Board" link at the bottom of the page and write a message that tells American Express why this is so important. (For example, no funds available, current treatments are toxic and punishing, not to mention ineffective, etc.)
The ultimate thing you could do is reach out to your friends, colleagues, family, and any other groups where you might get the membership to vote for the project as well. (Feel free to also put the request on Facebook,MySpace, carepages, caringbridge, website, etc. page. and ask everyone to do the same.)
The goal is HUGE, but 'viral marketing' can work...if each one of us reaches out to their email contact lists. We stand a chance if we stand together!!!!
PLEASE, PLEASE help us get these funds for pediatric brain tumor research.
Thanks so much!
" Children with brain tumors should be able to fight for their dreams, not for their lives."
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Pediatric Brain Tumor Traced To Normal Cells Gone Bad
An aggressive childhood brain tumor known as medulloblastoma originates in normal brain “stem” cells that turn malignant when acted on by a known mutant, cancer-causing oncogene, say researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Reporting in the Aug. 12 issue of Cancer Cell, the scientists say they have uncovered new origins for these tumors from early stem cells as well as more mature cells. Previously, scientists had assumed the tumors might only come from a single source: more mature cells which become neurons and do not have “stem” cell properties. The findings hint at potential new treatment approaches for medulloblastoma by targeting the origins of the tumors, and further suggest that not all patients’ tumors may be born from the same cells.
“We now have a better idea of where these brain tumors come from and their relationship to normal stem cells in the brain,” said Keith Ligon, MD, PhD, co-senior author of the report and an investigator at the Center for Molecular Oncologic Pathology at Dana-Farber and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Co-senior author, David Rowitch, MD, PhD, currently a professor of pediatrics and neurosurgery at UCSF and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, commented that mouse experiments shed light on how normal stem cells – cells with the power to create all types of cells in the brain – can be transformed into tumors. The transformation occurs when a cell-signaling pathway known as Sonic hedgehog (named for a cartoon character) is reactivated by a chance mutation.
Sonic hedgehog plays an important role during the embryonic development of the brain, but normally shuts down when it’s no longer needed. When turned on again by a mutation, the signals can trigger cell processes leading to tumors – not just in the brain, but in other organs as well.
Medulloblastomas, usually diagnosed in children between 2 and 5 years of age, affect the brain’s cerebellum region, which is involved in controlling body movements. They make up about 30 percent of childhood brain tumors, and account for 250 to 300 new cases per year.
With current treatments, approximately 60 to 70 percent of patients live at least five years, but often they are left with cognitive disabilities from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, urgently suggesting a need for new, more-selective therapies.
“Medulloblastoma was one of the first tumors that was believed to fit the hypothesis that tumors are caused by ‘cancer stem cells’ that initiate malignancies and sustain them,” said Ligon, who is also on the faculty and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “But the prevailing hypothesis — that medulloblastomas originate from non-stem cells -- just did not make perfect sense with this.”
The discoveries emerged from a series of experiments begun in the Rowitch Laboratory at Dana-Farber. The initial goal was to determine whether activating the Sonic hedgehog cancer pathway in multiple types of brain cells, including neural stem cells, could help pinpoint which cells brain cancers might come from. Surprisingly, the scientists generated just one tumor type, medulloblastoma, regardless of whether they activated the pathway in stem cells for other cell types called neurons and glia. This was a surprise: it had been thought that medulloblastoma arose purely from neuronal (“thinking”) cells and not “glial” or supporting cells.
An intriguing question for the investigators is why these cells, known as granule neuron precursors, seem to be uniquely vulnerable to the tumor-triggering effects of the Sonic hedgehog pathway, while other brain stem and progenitor cells are not.
Explained Rowitch: “There must be susceptibility factors in the granule neuron precursor cell that predispose it to forming cancer, so we now must try to understand what it is about this cell type that makes it susceptible to forming cancer in response to Sonic hedgehog signaling. This relationship between stem cells and oncogenes suggests a new point of potential therapeutic intervention.”
The paper’s lead authors are Ulrich Schüller, MD, an independent researcher in Munich, and Vivi M. Heine, PhD, of UCSF.
The other authors are Alvin T. Kho, PhD, of Children’s Hospital Boston; Allison K. Dillon, PhD; Tao Sun, PhD; Qiufa Ma, PhD, and Ying Qian, of Dana-Farber; Young-Goo Han, PhD, and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD, of UCSF; Emmanuelle Huillard, PhD, formerly of Dana-Farber and now at UCSF; Azra H. Ligon, PhD, of Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s; and Junhao Mao, PhD, and Andrew P. McMahon, PhD, of Harvard University.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes Foundation, the James S. McDonnell Research Foundation, and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Source: UCSF News Office
Reporting in the Aug. 12 issue of Cancer Cell, the scientists say they have uncovered new origins for these tumors from early stem cells as well as more mature cells. Previously, scientists had assumed the tumors might only come from a single source: more mature cells which become neurons and do not have “stem” cell properties. The findings hint at potential new treatment approaches for medulloblastoma by targeting the origins of the tumors, and further suggest that not all patients’ tumors may be born from the same cells.
“We now have a better idea of where these brain tumors come from and their relationship to normal stem cells in the brain,” said Keith Ligon, MD, PhD, co-senior author of the report and an investigator at the Center for Molecular Oncologic Pathology at Dana-Farber and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Co-senior author, David Rowitch, MD, PhD, currently a professor of pediatrics and neurosurgery at UCSF and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, commented that mouse experiments shed light on how normal stem cells – cells with the power to create all types of cells in the brain – can be transformed into tumors. The transformation occurs when a cell-signaling pathway known as Sonic hedgehog (named for a cartoon character) is reactivated by a chance mutation.
Sonic hedgehog plays an important role during the embryonic development of the brain, but normally shuts down when it’s no longer needed. When turned on again by a mutation, the signals can trigger cell processes leading to tumors – not just in the brain, but in other organs as well.
Medulloblastomas, usually diagnosed in children between 2 and 5 years of age, affect the brain’s cerebellum region, which is involved in controlling body movements. They make up about 30 percent of childhood brain tumors, and account for 250 to 300 new cases per year.
With current treatments, approximately 60 to 70 percent of patients live at least five years, but often they are left with cognitive disabilities from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, urgently suggesting a need for new, more-selective therapies.
“Medulloblastoma was one of the first tumors that was believed to fit the hypothesis that tumors are caused by ‘cancer stem cells’ that initiate malignancies and sustain them,” said Ligon, who is also on the faculty and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “But the prevailing hypothesis — that medulloblastomas originate from non-stem cells -- just did not make perfect sense with this.”
The discoveries emerged from a series of experiments begun in the Rowitch Laboratory at Dana-Farber. The initial goal was to determine whether activating the Sonic hedgehog cancer pathway in multiple types of brain cells, including neural stem cells, could help pinpoint which cells brain cancers might come from. Surprisingly, the scientists generated just one tumor type, medulloblastoma, regardless of whether they activated the pathway in stem cells for other cell types called neurons and glia. This was a surprise: it had been thought that medulloblastoma arose purely from neuronal (“thinking”) cells and not “glial” or supporting cells.
An intriguing question for the investigators is why these cells, known as granule neuron precursors, seem to be uniquely vulnerable to the tumor-triggering effects of the Sonic hedgehog pathway, while other brain stem and progenitor cells are not.
Explained Rowitch: “There must be susceptibility factors in the granule neuron precursor cell that predispose it to forming cancer, so we now must try to understand what it is about this cell type that makes it susceptible to forming cancer in response to Sonic hedgehog signaling. This relationship between stem cells and oncogenes suggests a new point of potential therapeutic intervention.”
The paper’s lead authors are Ulrich Schüller, MD, an independent researcher in Munich, and Vivi M. Heine, PhD, of UCSF.
The other authors are Alvin T. Kho, PhD, of Children’s Hospital Boston; Allison K. Dillon, PhD; Tao Sun, PhD; Qiufa Ma, PhD, and Ying Qian, of Dana-Farber; Young-Goo Han, PhD, and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD, of UCSF; Emmanuelle Huillard, PhD, formerly of Dana-Farber and now at UCSF; Azra H. Ligon, PhD, of Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s; and Junhao Mao, PhD, and Andrew P. McMahon, PhD, of Harvard University.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes Foundation, the James S. McDonnell Research Foundation, and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
Source: UCSF News Office
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
People Against Childhood Cancer
Please join this united force against childood cancer.
View my page on People Against Childhood Cancer
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Everyday Is A Gift From God....
None of us know what tomorrow holds for us. What we are doing with our life this very minute is what is important. What are you doing with your time? Will you be remembered for what you did while here on earth?
At this very minute, in a hospital or clinic somewhere, parents are hearing those dreaded words, you child has cancer. Do you think they expected to hear those dreadful words?
Just look in the sidebar of this blog at all the names of children who fight a brain tumor everyday. All these families are taking life one day at a time and hoping a cure or treatment will be discovered to save their child.
Now scan down to the next section in the sidebar. The families of these children will never be the same. They have had to do the unthinkable, something no parent should have to do, bury their child.
I thank God everyday, I do not know that feeling. I do know what it feels like to hear, "your child has cancer". There are no words to describe that feeling.
Many have told me I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to children with brain tumors. I never try to hide my passion and determination to help find a cure or at least, better treatment options. One never knows what the future holds and that is just one of the reasons, I work everyday trying to make a difference to children everywhere. There are very few children listed here, that I have actually met in person, but that does not stop my loving and caring for each and everyone of them.
You, as a reader, do not know what the future holds for your children or a child you know. You can only hope, you never hear those dreaded words, your child has cancer and there is nothing we can do for him or her. The important issue is what we are doing right now.
My plea to you...Please choose today to make a difference and support Brown Bag For A Cure. All you need to do, is brown bag your lunch and donate what you would have spent on lunch out.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Pray For a 911 Miracle For Gunner
Gunner is hospitalized and his mother, Janna has asked everyone to pray for a 911 Miracle for Gunner. Please join me and pray for G.If you want to leave words of encouragment in the comment section, I will pass them on to Janna.
This is Gunner's Magic Train..Please get onboard, so we can help him move this mountain.
Please read the latest updates on Gunner here:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/gunnergillespie
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