PEDIATRIC CANCER FOUNDATION LAUNCHES INNOVATIVE RESEARCH MODEL IN THE SUNSHINE PROJECT

Tampa, FL, November 18, 2005 – The Pediatric Cancer Foundation (PCF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to eradicating childhood cancers by funding pediatric cancer research, today announced a new initiative called The Sunshine Project. The Project creates a novel, collaborative research infrastructure that changes the way pediatric cancer research is conducted in this country. The new research model will be applied to developing treatments that target only specific cancer-causing molecules in the body, unlike more traditional treatments that often prove toxic to healthy cells.

The Sunshine Project addresses the problem of a relative lack of research for new pediatric cancer therapies compared to adult therapies, as was identified in the 2005 report of the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of The National Academies. “The near absence of research in pediatric cancer drug discovery threatens to halt the progress in childhood cancer treatment achieved during the past four decades,” the report warned. The Sunshine Project’s unique collaborative approach streamlines the sharing of information among prominent pediatric cancer researchers and their institutions and will accelerate both the pace and the effectiveness of new cancer therapies for children.

The Sunshine Project is spearheaded and funded by the PCF. Its co-principal investigators are Richard Jove, Ph.D. Deputy Director, City of Hope Cancer Center, California and G. Douglas Letson, MD, Division Chief, Sarcoma, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Florida.

“The Sunshine Project’s unique collaborative model will help move us toward the goal of finding new therapies for the 20 percent of childhood cancers that have not yet been adequately addressed by the research community,” said Dr. Jove. “We’re developing new approaches that are less debilitating to the young patients, since our techniques only target the cancerous cells, leaving the child’s healthy cells untouched—a vital improvement over older therapies.”

“As an investigator who has seen a lot children suffer and far too many lose their battle, I believe the Sunshine Project will make a genuine impact on childhood cancer treatment options by spurring the development of new therapies specifically for children,” Dr. Letson said.

After funding 14 years of pediatric cancer research, PCF researchers have gained greater understanding of the disease, but have concluded that the pace of discovery for certain types of childhood cancer, particularly sarcomas, was far too slow, with too many children dying. While 80 percent of the 12,500 children diagnosed with cancer each year are generally considered cured, the survival rate for more virulent sarcomas, which account for about 15 percent of childhood malignancies, remains disproportionately high.

“This is the most important initiative The Pediatric Cancer Foundation has established to date,” said Melissa Helms, the Foundation’s Co-Founder. “We have one goal – and that is the elimination of cancer in children, and the Sunshine Project’s novel collaborative structure brings us one tremendous step closer to achieving that goal.”

The Sunshine Project consists of a coalition of the nation’s leading pediatric oncologists, pathologists, biologists and medical information technology specialists who will collaborate over a period of three years. Their organizations include the most prestigious medical and research institutions in the United States, including Moffitt Cancer Center, City of Hope Cancer Center, All Children’s Hospital, St. Petersburg, Miami Children’s Hospital, Nemours Jacksonville and University of Miami. The researchers will work as a single, cooperative virtual team, providing a comprehensive study of the disease from each scientific perspective. They will simultaneously implement the most promising therapeutic trials at an accelerated pace, then fast track these treatments to clinical application.

The Sunshine Project also collaborates with the Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators Consortium (POETIC) on the clinical trials component of the project. POETIC promotes the early clinical development of promising therapies for the treatment of children, adolescents and young adults with cancer.

POETIC includes Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (Atlanta, GA), MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX), Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY), Phoenix Children's Hospital (Phoenix, AZ), Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center (Baltimore, MD), University of Arizona Health Sciences Center (Tucson, AZ), Southern Alberta Children's Cancer Program (Calgary, Alberta Canada), University of Colorado Health Sciences Center/The Children's Hospital, (Denver, CO), University of Florida Shands Cancer Center (Gainesville, FL), and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, TN).

The Sunshine Project focuses on three objectives:
1. Conclude novel, early phase clinical trials in children and adolescents diagnosed with metastatic or high-risk bone or soft tissue sarcoma.
2. Identify new molecular targets for drug development using sarcoma cell lines and patient tumor biopsies and validate these targets in clinical trials. 3. Perform pre-clinical evaluations of several new classes of anti-tumor agents in human sarcoma cell lines and animal models in order to identify drug candidates suitable for clinical trials