September is Childhood Cancer Month, learn more about cancer in children and Gold Together Relay For Life fundraising at cancer.org. Learn more about childhood cancer research and how ACS is making an impact in the fight against childhood cancer.
Every two minutes a child somewhere in the world is diagnosed with cancer, and one in five in the US will not survive. The American Cancer Society takes a comprehensive approach to combating childhood cancer by funding research and advocating for government policies that include making it easier for all children to get quality care and providing support for patients and their families.
The #GoldTogether movement is a national program that is helping attack childhood cancer and was created by pediatric brain cancer survivor and Relay For Life volunteer, Cole Eicher. His vision started with one team in St. Petersburg, Florida. It quickly grew into over 200 #GoldTogether Relay For Life teams fighting together to attack childhood cancer with the help of his mom, Laura Eicher, ACS senior pediatric initiatives manager. Funds raised by #GoldTogether support childhood cancer research, services, and awareness, as well as cancer prevention efforts targeting children. Since 2014, the #GoldTogether movement has raised more than $1 million for kids fighting cancer.
American Cancer Society-funded researcher Andras Heczey, MD, and his team just completed work with immune cells in the blood called natural killer T-lymphocytes (NKTs) at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. As part of the immune system, NKTs can attack noncancerous cells that allow a neuroblastoma tumor to grow. “The overall goal of our clinical study is to evaluate a conceptually new form of cancer immunotherapy for children with neuroblastoma using native and engineered properties of Natural Killer T cells (NKTs). The results of this study will inform clinical development of NKT-cell based immunotherapy of neuroblastoma and have a broad applicability for other types of cancer. This is in line with the American Cancer Society’s mission to eradicate cancer,” writes Heczey.
No comments:
Post a Comment