On May 28, 2009, one year from its launch, Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) announced its first round of three-year “Dream Team” grants to five multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary research teams, totaling $73.6 million. SU2C’s distinctive approach to funding cancer research was specifically designed to eliminate barriers to creativity and collaboration, in part, by enabling scientists with different expertise from different institutions across the country – and in some cases, internationally – to work together. Each Dream Team’s project is “translational” in nature, geared toward moving science from “bench to bedside” where it can benefit patients as quickly as possible. Collectively, the research being done through the Dream Team projects could impact the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of cancers in adults and children across ethnicities including, but not limited to pancreatic, breast, ovarian, cervical, uterine, brain, lung, prostate, melanoma and leukemia, which represent two thirds of all U.S. cancer deaths.
On December 14, 2011, SU2C announced its first jointly funded Dream Team in collaboration with the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA). The SU2C-MRA Melanoma Dream Team Translational Cancer Research Grant provides $6 million during a three-year period for a project that will accelerate the application of new therapeutic agents to the clinic, thus advancing scientific research in the interests of both today’s cancer patients and those who may develop cancer in the future.
On April 1, 2012, SU2C, in collaboration with the Prostate Cancer Foundation, announced recipients of a new Dream Team. The SU2C-PCF Prostate Dream Team Translational Cancer Research Grant provides $10 million during a three-year period for a project that addresses therapeutic interventions for advanced prostate cancer with special emphasis on metastatic disease.
SU2C is in the process of reviewing proposals for the Sta op tegen Kanker International Translational Cancer Research Grants. This funding mechanism represents a new, focused effort to affect advances in cancer research as rapidly as possible through the creation of collaborative, international translational cancer research “Team.” This grant is supported through a collaboration between SU2C and Kankerbestrijding/The Dutch Cancer Society (KWF). In addition, SU2C and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) jointly announced a call for ideas for a SU2C-CRI Cancer Immunology Translational Research Dream Team. This grant will fund a translational cancer research project that will use an immunology-based approach to advance the treatment, control and prevention of cancer.
Since the launch of this groundbreaking initiative in 2008, the AACR, SU2C's scientific partner, has played an integral role by providing scientific leadership, expert peer review and grants administration. For each grant opportunity, the AACR assembles a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Phillip A. Sharp to conduct innovative, interactive, rapid and rigorous scientific reviews of Dream Teams ideas via a multi-step process. Joint Scientific Advisory Committees (JSAC) were formed for the SU2C-MRA and SU2C-PCF joint collaborations. The AACR is responsible for administering the Dream Team cancer research grants, including distributing the funds to the Dream Team leaders' institutions, developing methods of reporting and providing scientific oversight through program management and evaluation of progress during the funding period. The AACR and the Scientific Advisory Committees conduct periodic reviews to ensure that milestones and objectives are being satisfactorily achieved.
For non-media related SU2C questions, please send an email to SU2C@aacr.org.
The seven Dream Teams are:
Precision Therapy of Advanced Prostate Cancer
Leader: Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., clinical pathologist and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; S.P. Hicks endowed professor of pathology and professor of urology at the University of Michigan
Co-Leader: Charles L. Sawyers, M.D., chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator; professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology Program and the Department of Medicine at the Joan & Sanford Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University
Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of death for men in the United States. According to PCF, one man dies every 18 minutes from this disease. In addition, a new case occurs every 2.4 minutes. More than 2 million American men are currently living with prostate cancer and more than 16 million men are affected worldwide.
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SU2C-MRA Dream Team: Personalized Medicine for Patients With BRAF Wild-Type (BRAFwt) Cancer
Leader: Jeffrey M. Trent, Ph.D., F.A.C.M.G., president and research director at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN) and the Van Andel Research Institute (VARI)
Co-Leader: Patricia M. LoRusso, D.O., director, Center for Experimental Therapeutics, Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine
Currently, patients who develop metastatic melanoma have a dismal prognosis, with a median survival of six to nine months and a three-year survival rate of 10 percent to 15 percent. About half of patients with metastatic melanoma have an oncogenic mutation in their tumor’s BRAF gene, but the other half of patients are BRAF wild type (BRAFwt) and have no mutation in the gene. Very little progress has been made to identify new therapeutic targets to treat metastatic melanoma patients with BRAFwt disease.
This project will investigate the utility of personalized target/therapy identification in patients with BRAFwt metastatic melanoma. The goal is a significant improvement in tumor response relative to standard-of-care therapy. This Dream Team hopes that an individualized medicine approach to the treatment of BRAFwt metastatic melanoma will not only lead to therapeutic benefit for this patient population, but may also be beneficial to many other tumor and disease types. Read More
Dream Team: Bringing Epigenetic Therapy to the Forefront of Cancer Management
Leader: Stephen B. Baylin, M.D., deputy director, the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
Co-Leader: Peter A. Jones, Ph.D., D.Sc., distinguished professor of urology and biochemistry & molecular biology, University of Southern California
Researchers have discovered that there are additional layers of material outside of the DNA that regulate, or turn on and off, genes. These epigenomes, as they are known, have been the focus of a rapidly emerging, important new area of cancer research. Investigators have determined that inappropriate epigenetic activity contributes significantly to cancer causation and growth, and that unlike mutations in the DNA, these changes can be reversed. This opens the door to cancer research that could potentially regulate this activity or return the affected genes to normal function even after they have become defective. Read More.
Dream Team: Targeting the PI3K Pathway in Women's Cancers
Leader: Lewis C. Cantley, Ph.D., director, Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Co-Leaders: Charles L. Sawyers, M.D., director of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and
Gordon B. Mills, M.D., Ph.D., chair, department of systems biology, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
This project focuses on frequent mutations that occur in a set of genes that regulate the PI3K pathway, which is a complex signaling cascade that, in concert with other signaling networks, regulates cell survival and growth. The scientists involved in this Dream Team are the pioneers who discovered the PI3K pathway and validated its role in human cancers, and they will focus on breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers, all of which have the PI3K mutation. A number of drugs to inhibit this pathway have been developed and currently are in clinical trials. However, as with other "targeted" therapies, only a fraction of patients who enroll in these cancer research trials benefit, and it is not possible to predict which patients will respond positively. This means that many women will be given treatments that have no benefit to them or could cause unnecessary complications. Read More.
Dream Team: An Integrated Approach to Targeting Breast Cancer Molecular Subtypes and Their 'Resistance' Phenotypes
Leaders:
Joe W. Gray, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Oregon Health and Science University
Dennis J. Slamon, M.D., Ph.D., director of clinical/translational research, UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
Although a great deal of progress has been made in understanding and treating breast cancer, more than 40,000 women a year lose their lives to this disease in the United States alone. During the past several years, cancer researchers have come to understand that breast cancer is not a single disease but rather a spectrum of conditions that vary in their biology and response to treatment, and understanding breast cancer's molecular diversity has been the driving force leading to the development of new treatments for this disease. Read More.
Dream Team: Bioengineering and Clinical Applications of Circulating Tumor Cell Chip
Leader: Daniel A. Haber, M.D., Ph.D., director, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center
Co-Leader: Mehmet Toner, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering, Harvard Medical School
Cancers arise within the cells of an organ, such as the breast or pancreas, but cause death by disseminating throughout the bloodstream, spreading - or metastasizing - to the bone, liver, lungs or brain. Cancer cells that spread from the primary tumor can be found in the blood of patients with cancer. These circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are extraordinarily rare - there is one per one billion normal cells. The ability to detect and analyze them would allow for significant advances in detecting and treating cancers as well as understanding the fundamental mechanisms by which cancers spread. Read More.
Dream Team: Cutting off the Fuel Supply: A New Approach to the Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer
Leaders:
Craig B. Thompson, M.D., president and CEO, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Daniel D. Von Hoff, M.D., senior investigator and physician-in-chief, Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen)
As the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, pancreatic cancer remains one of the most deadly forms of cancer. More than 90 percent of patients die within the first year of diagnosis. Recent advancements have had little impact, and a new approach is desperately needed. Scientists have suggested the possibility of "starving" cancer cells to death by depriving them of a specific nutrient that they require for survival. Recent cancer research studies have demonstrated that most cells acquire mutations causing them to become addicted to a continual supply of nutrients to produce the energy needed for survival and proliferation. In most cancers, this nutrient is glucose. Read More.