Causes often depend on donations to support its good initiative. These sometimes come in the form of food or water, other times money or clothing, or even volunteers and the capabilities of infra-structure. But what about words?

Believing in the power of words, the Doe Palavras Project, ‘Donate Words’ in English, was conceived to change the notion that helping other people through donation does not necessarily have to be in measurable assets. The Mário Pena Institute in Minas Gerais, Brazil, is a hospital center focused on cancer treatment. They developed the idea of combining the need to support people going through hard times with the opportunities of social networks to develop something through the transformational power of the words.

Screens distributed in the rooms where patients receive their chemotherapy show messages sent by strangers who wish to encourage another human being struggling with life-threatening cancer. These messages are sent using Twitter.

The words can help motivate one person to the long path of a healthy treatment. The project goes beyond the traditional way to help and develops a simple and effective way to “donate.” The project explains that what the patients need the most are positive messages of love, hope and strength. They need to believe that the treatment will make them better.

The idea is really simple: people from around the world send heart-warming and encouraging messages using the project’s website or through Twitter, by adding the hashtag #doepalavras or #donatewords.

Messages such as “Strength and courage I send to you today for you are braver than you think and stronger than you feel” and “While there is a will to fight, there is hope of winning” will reach those who do not need food or water, but support on the road to recovery.

Doe Palavras also has an English version, Donate Words, and is available for free to any hospital that wants to use the system.

In seven months, the project has garnered 1,306,710 messages from 128 countries around the world and brought smiles to people who may have had to overcome the hardest challenge of their lives.

It has been an applauded initiative and has already received many awards, such as the Big Idea Chair of Yahoo and the Top of Marketing 2010. There is also a plan to make a book that compiles the best messages, which will then be distributed to hospitals.

Image courtesy: Instituto Mario Penna

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Montreal, Canada — The 3-year, $1 million fundraising campaign was announced on June 14 at the 18th annual McGill Head & Neck Fundraising gala, honoring the Founder and Chairman of MEGA Brands, Victor J. Bertrand Sr.

“MEGA Brands is committed to giving back to the Montreal community,” said Vic Bertrand, Chief Innovation Officer, “We are proud to partner with the McGill Cancer Head & Neck Fund to contribute in building a better future for our children, one block at a time.”

The funds will be directed to support Dr. Sam Daniel, Director Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, and his world-class research lab which focuses on hearing loss in children caused by cancer treatment.

“Unfortunately, chemotherapy can cause severe irreversible hearing loss in 50% to 90% of all pediatric cancer patients. This has a tremendous impact on the quality of life of pediatric cancer survivors, as hearing loss can worsen over time and impede speech and language development,” said Dr. Saul Frenkiel, Chair of the McGill Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. “This campaign is an exciting opportunity to support the important research to find cures for a devastating side-effect of cancer treatment.”

The campaign was unveiled with the presentation of the Mega Bloks Wellness Wall For Kids. The wall will be built out of Mega Bloks blocks, each one representing a donation by supporters from the Montreal community, and will be installed at the new Montreal’s Children Hospital on the Glen site. More information on the Mega Bloks Wellness Wall for Kids, as well as directions on how to make a donation, will become available in mid-September 2012.

“We are very grateful for this collaboration, which will have a major impact on the lives of children with cancer,” said Marie-Josée Gariépy, president of the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

The Montreal Children’s Hospital is the pediatric teaching hospital of the McGill University Health Centre. The Children’s is a leader in providing a broad spectrum of highly specialized care to newborns, children, and adolescents from all across Quebec.

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California, U.S.A. - Amgen announced that four individuals who have made a difference for others affected by cancer in their communities have been selected as Breakaway from Cancer Champions.

They will be honored at the seventh consecutive edition of the Amgen Tour of California as part of Amgen’s Breakaway from Cancer initiative. The Amgen Tour of California is America’s largest and most prestigious road cycling stage race, which will travel nearly 750 miles throughout California from May 13 – 20, 2012.

The four Breakaway from Cancer Champions were selected following a public call for nominations in four of this year’s host finish cities, followed by an online voting campaign that concluded in April. The 2012 Breakaway from Cancer Champions are:

Santa Rosa – Marc Van Riper for co-founding Kathy’s Camp for Kids, a nonprofit organization dedicated to meeting the needs of the children of cancer patients. Kathy’s Camp for Kids is a place where fear of cancer is replaced with fun, friendship and encouragement.

Livermore – Two-time testicular cancer survivor Bob Hammer for founding the “Have a Ball” Foundation, which has raised more than $1,000,000 since its start and benefits 20 cancer organizations, sends kids with cancer to camps and has established and granted scholarships for students.

Clovis – Susan Mott for acting as a tireless advocate for awareness and fundraising for blood cancers. Specifically, Susan has raised money and organized blood drives for her toddler granddaughter, Madyn, who was diagnosed with leukemia in June 2011.

Los Angeles – Cancer survivor Danielle McLaughlin for her work advocating for young adults with cancer and her extraordinary accomplishments as a paratriathlete. Danielle is currently the National and World Paratriathlon Champion for Female Below-Knee Amputees.

“Amgen is passionate about helping those with cancer and we are proud to honor individuals who make a positive difference in the fight against cancer,” said Stuart Arbuckle, vice president and general manager, Amgen Oncology. “Breakaway from Cancer was founded on the belief that it takes a team to overcome this disease and the Champions program exemplifies this commitment to helping others.”

Founded by Amgen in 2005, Breakaway from Cancer is a national initiative to increase awareness of the important resources available to people affected by cancer – from prevention through survivorship. Breakaway from Cancer represents collaboration between Amgen and four nonprofit organizations dedicated to empowering patients with education, resources and hope.

The Breakaway from Cancer Champions will lead the “Breakaway Mile,” an approximately one-mile march that celebrates cancer survivors and crosses the Amgen Tour of California finish line prior to the stage conclusion of the professional race. The Breakaway Mile will take place in four 2012 race host cities on race day: Santa Rosa, Livermore, Clovis and Los Angeles. Each Breakaway Mile will also feature an Amgen scientist who plays a crucial role in developing breakthrough medicines for patients affected by cancer and other serious illnesses.

At the conclusion of each stage of the Amgen Tour of California, the Breakaway from Cancer Champion or a local cancer survivor will present Amgen’s Breakaway from Cancer Most Courageous Rider jersey to the professional rider who best exemplifies the character of those engaged in the fight against cancer—courage, sacrifice, inspiration, determination and perseverance.

Also during the 2012 Amgen Tour of California, a local cancer survivor will officially start each day’s stage by firing the official start gun. He or she will also have the opportunity to meet the prior day’s recipient of Amgen’s Breakaway from Cancer Most Courageous Rider jersey.

All Breakaway from Cancer programs benefit the initiative’s four nonprofit partners – Prevent Cancer Foundation, Cancer Support Community, Patient Advocate Foundation and National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. Representatives of these four organizations will travel with the Amgen Tour of California, hosting a Breakaway from Cancer information booth at the Lifestyle Festival held in each of the finish cities along the route.

Image Courtesy of   Amgen Tour of California

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A new patent has been issued to Moffitt Cancer Center for a computerized system that efficiently selects the right patient for the right clinical trial.

The newly patented system matches the registered patient’s own molecular profile – warehoused in a database of thousands of patient-donated biological tissue or tumor samples – to the molecular design of the drug aimed at targeting their disease at the molecular level, and do it quickly. The system promises to accelerate clinical trials and help shorten the time that it takes to get critically needed new drugs into the market.

Getting new drugs to market to fight cancer and other serious diseases requires, on average, 15 years. The drug development process is long and complex, but the three-phase clinical trials process – estimated to take up to half of those 15 years – is often the bottleneck in getting innovative drugs to the patients who need them.

Clinical trials, increasingly becoming more expensive, are also multifaceted. While patients may qualify for a clinical trial based on their age or stage of disease, they may not be, over the long term of the trial, the best candidates to test a drug. Adverse events, changes in a patient’s health status and the potential for a drug not being effective for them slow the process.

Although patients may have met the trial protocol’s criteria, the drug may not be right for them because their molecular profile is not a good match for the chemical and molecular properties of the drug. Because the concept of personalized medicine is selecting the right drug for the right patient, innovations have been needed to bring personalized medicine to reality. Personalizing the selection process for clinical trials is a vital step.

With the development of new and better ways to examine and understand a tumor’s molecular profile, matching the right patient to the right clinical trial becomes increasingly important. But handling the massive data evaluation necessary to accomplish this has been a stumbling block.

The newly patented computer system, Patent Number US 8,095,389 B2, or “Computer Systems and Methods for Selecting Patients for Clinical Trials,” is designed to surmount that problem.

The newly patented computer system is designed to:

• Select patients to clinical trials matching an individual’s/drug’s molecular profile
• Match patients to clinical trials by a patient’s disease/diagnosis
• Match patients to clinical trials by their symptoms
• Match patients to clinical trials by their demographic information and family history
• Track a clinical trial participant’s disease progression compared to drug efficacy

The newly patented computer system and associated products, such as operating system, software, interfaces and data retrieval system, improve clinical trial selection efficacy by making the patient selection process less random and more selective. The technology has the potential to refine clinical trials by eliminating bottlenecks, overhauling the selection process and shortening the timeline, ultimately bringing new drugs to market more efficiently.

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Researchers have discovered that a subtype of leukemia characterized by a poor prognosis is fueled by mutations in pathways distinctly different from a seemingly similar leukemia associated with a much better outcome. The findings from the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project highlight a possible new strategy for treating patients with this more aggressive cancer.

The work provides the first details of the genetic alterations fueling a subtype of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) known as early T-cell precursor ALL (ETP-ALL). The results suggest ETP-ALL has more in common with acute myeloid leukemia than with other subtypes of ALL. The study appears in the January 12 edition of the journal ‘Nature’.

ALL is the most common childhood cancer and about 12 percent of patients have T-ALL. T-ALL arises from T-lineage white blood cells that make up one branch of the immune system. ETP-ALL was discovered by St. Jude researchers and accounts for about 12 percent of T-cell ALL. Many ETP-ALL patients fail to respond to current therapy and never enter remission. Only 30 to 40 percent of these patients become long-term survivors, compared to about 80 percent of children battling other T-ALL subtypes.

“The mutations and gene expression profile we identified in this study suggest that patients with ETP-ALL might benefit from treatment that includes drugs developed for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia,” said Charles Mullighan, M.D., Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Pathology and one of the study’s corresponding authors.

Mullighan said ETP-ALL was selected for inclusion in the pediatric cancer genome project due to the poor outcome and the lack of information on the genetic lesions that underlie this aggressive subtype of leukemia. “St. Jude is a pioneer in increasing overall ALL survival rates, which today exceed 90 percent for St. Jude patients. Now, we are working toward similar progress against this rare form of the disease,” he said.

The human genome is the complete set of instructions needed to assemble and sustain human life. Leukemia and other cancers develop when normal cells accumulate mutations in the genome that cause the unchecked cell growth that is a hallmark of cancer. The three-year Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is sequencing the genomes of tumor cells and matched normal DNA samples of 600 children with some of the most poorly understood and aggressive cancers. Investigators believe the findings will be the foundation for the next generation of clinical tools.

For this study, researchers sequenced and analyzed the normal and cancer genomes of 12 St. Jude patients with ETP-ALL. Investigators then checked for some of the same mutations in an additional 94 young leukemia patients with either ETP-ALL or other types of T-cell ALL.

“We found mutations unique to ETP-ALL that are not seen in other forms of ALL,” said co-author Richard Wilson, Ph.D., director of The Genome Institute at Washington University. “The results provide new targets for therapy and a way to use genetic tests to identify ETP-ALL patients early and earmark them for more aggressive therapy.”

The pattern of mutations identified in ETP-ALL was reminiscent of changes associated with AML, Mullighan said. The alterations were concentrated in genes in the cytokine receptor and RAS signaling pathways that are involved in the type of cell regulation disrupted in cancer. The mutations, which included NRAS, FLT3, JAK3, IL7R, and other genes, were found in about 67 percent of patients with ETP-ALL, but in only 19 percent of other T-ALL patients.

In addition, mutations in genes known or predicted to disrupt normal development of blood stem cells or lymphocytes were identified in 58 percent of ETP-ALL patients, but in just 17 percent of other T-ALL patients. The affected genes included ETV6, RUNX1, IKZF1, and GATA3. GATA3 helps regulate the early stages of T cell development, and mutations in the gene were found exclusively in ETP-ALL patients.

Epigenetic mutations, which are alterations affecting genes that indirectly influence the activity of other genes, were also more common in ETP-ALL patients. These genes, including EZH2 and SUZ12, were mutated or deleted in 45 percent of ETP-ALL patients, but in just 11 percent of the comparison group. The targeted genes modify proteins known as histones, which control gene activity through DNA binding.

Researchers also showed that ETP-ALL includes recurring mutations in about a half-dozen genes not previously linked to blood cancers. The list includes the genes RELN and DNM2. “The pattern of mutations we found in those genes suggests they function as tumor suppressors and their loss contributes to the malignant transformation of developing blood cells,” Mullighan said.

Mullighan said work is underway to develop laboratory models of human ETP-ALL and to use these models to identify AML drugs that are most likely to benefit ETP-ALL patients. The list of possible drugs includes high-dose cytarabine and targeted chemotherapy agents that inhibit activity in the cytokine receptor and JAK signaling pathways found in this study to be disrupted in ETP-ALL patients, researchers said. Those pathways help regulate cell division and normal development of the blood system.

“This is the first of a series of important discoveries on the genomic basis of childhood cancers that are emerging from the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, which is on schedule to fully sequence 600 pediatric cancer genomes by 2013,” said Dr. William E. Evans, St. Jude director and CEO.

James Downing, M.D., St. Jude scientific director, St. Jude PCGP site leader and a corresponding author of the study, added, “This study highlights how the genome project is generating new insights into the genetic alterations that underlie some of the most aggressive childhood cancers and in turn is pointing us toward new therapeutic options that may increase the survival rates for children with these cancers.”

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