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| 2006 Seed Grant Recpients
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Vista Community Clinic, Vista, CA
Breast Cancer Survivor Program
Natasha Riley, Program Manager
Like many communities, North San Diego County has a significant population of low-income, minority breast cancer survivors. Vista Community Clinic, which focuses on removing economic, social, and cultural barriers to health care, has already been successful in increasing breast cancer screening rates among this at-risk population. So far, however, they have not been able to provide structured support services to survivors.
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With a 2006 Seed Grant from NRGF, Vista will conduct a focus group of low-income, underserved breast cancer survivors, and use the data to develop a resource list and a support group curriculum for these survivors. Natasha Riley, the University of New Orleans-trained manager of the VCC Breast Health Program, will direct the development of the support group materials.
Vista will measure how their intervention affects the survivors' knowledge of breast cancer survivorship resources and issues, as well as their quality of life. Vista plans to disseminate the results of their project at conferences and through their network of existing contacts. Success in this project should lead to further funding for the support group, as well as attempts to replicate it in other underserved communities.
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Alliance Community Services, Salt Lake City, UT
"Triunfadoras"
Jorge J. Arce-Larreta, Program Director
Alliance Community Services project is aimed at improving outcomes for women with breast cancer. With a 2006 Seed Grant from NRGF, Alliance will improve its community-based effort to promote breast cancer awareness and early detection among populations at increased risk.
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The project will consist of the development of information materials to encourage appropriate screening and to help guide newly diagnosed patients, or those whose cancer has recurred, through the challenging maze of treatment options. Alliance will to publish an educational and inspirational bilingual booklet titled “Triunfadoras” as an enduring testament to our survivors in their daily fight against breast cancer to be used for educational and prevention purposes among the Hispanic community in Utah.
With a 2006 Seed Grant from NRGF, Alliance plans to reach at least 600 Hispanic women residing in Salt Lake and adjacent counties to receive information and education regarding the importance of early detection examinations by April 2007.
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Honorable Mention
Prof. Darin Y. Furgeson
University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy, Madison, WI
Darin Furgeson, a recent faculty hire at UW-Madison, is exploring ways to target chemotherapy drugs to tumor cells, while sparing normal cells. He proposes to combine several targeting methods into one design. Success could open up a new class of therapies to treat breast cancer.
Honorable Mention
Dr. Perla del Pino-White
The Reading Hospital and Medical Center, Reading, PA
Perla del Pino-White, a family medicine resident, is interested in increasing mammography rates among Latinas in the Reading area. She proposes to provide information and low-cost mammograms to this at-risk population and measure the effect using surveys. Success would improve the mammography rate in this community.
Honorable Mention
Marina Post
University of Texas, Tyler, TX
Marina Post, an undergraduate at UT-Tyler, is interested in the cellular processes mediated by the estrogen receptor in breast cancer cells. She proposes to investigate how estrogen receptor levels affect two other proteins of interest. Success could pave the way for new therapies for chemotherapy-resistant breast cancers.
Honorable Mention
Hallmark Health
Gail Merriam, MPH, Director of Community Services
Hallmark Health is interested in improving mammography education and outreach programs in two communities in Massachusetts. They propose a series of community forums on early detection. Success would result in higher mammography rates.
Honorable Mention
Al-Taj for Health and Heritage, Arraba, Israel
Kassim Baddarni, Chairman
Al-Taj, a nonprofit based in the Galilee, seeks to improve the health of the at-risk Arab Israeli population there. The organization proposes an intervention consisting of education and the provision of services such as mammography and clinical breast examination. Success would result in earlier diagnosis and better cure rates in this population.
Honorable Mention
Hunterdon Regional Cancer Center
Barbara Tofani, Director
Hunterdon Regional Cancer Center seeks to provide a mind/body component to their existing breast cancer survivorship program. They propose to implement a pilot program of exercise, stress management, and support for survivors. Success could lead to improved well-being for survivors and wider implementation of such programs.
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| 2005 Seed Grant Recpients
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Prof. Carolyn Friel, RPh, PhD
Opening Young Minds to Breast Cancer Research
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences – Worcester
Carolyn Friel is dedicated to the development of the next generation of breast cancer researchers. As a junior member of the faculty at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences – Worcester (MCPHS-W), she is responsible for teaching future Doctors of Pharmacy, and she recognizes the contribution that pharmacy students can make to the development of new therapies.
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Prof. Friel designed a series of chemical compounds that could be useful in learning more about the properties of the estrogen receptor with which tamoxifen binds, or could even become leads for future hormone therapies. She worked one-on-one on a daily basis with her student, Brooke van Eeghen, to carry out the chemical synthesis of six new compounds by a novel chemical route over a six-week period. The next steps in the project will be testing the compounds for biological effect and improving the yield of the chemical synthesis.
Prof. Friel and her student presented a poster on these compounds, "The synthesis of estrogen receptor antagonists for the treatment of breast cancer," to an audience of 700 pharmacists at the 65th Annual Reed Conference in Foxborough, MA, and an oral presentation at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Annual Conference this summer. The results have enabled her to successfully apply for a New Investigator grant from the AACP and to jump-start a broader research program at MCPHS-W. Her student, Brooke van Eeghen, PharmD '06, has moved on to a career which includes a strong research component, continuing the chain of scientific curiosity to a new generation.
"The seed funding provided the first external funding for my laboratory and allowed me to generate 'proof of concept' data. The data was used to successfully apply for a competitive American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education New Investigator Grant. My laboratory now has eight students working on the synthesis of new compounds to be tested as estrogen receptor antagonists. My original NRGF Pharm.D. student is now a clinical pharmacist working at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Miriam Hospital in RI."
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Dr. Jason A. Wilken, PhD
Exploring the Potential of a Natural Breast Cancer Inhibitor
Yale School of Medicine
 Download Dr. Wilken's year-end report and an informational article (Adobe PDF format)
Jason Wilken is motivated to capitalize on the promise shown by therapies such as trastuzumab (Herceptin), an antibody recently reported to be useful in the treatment of early as well as advanced breast cancers. A postdoctoral fellow in cancer biology at the Yale School of Medicine, he has designed a project that should push forward the frontiers of knowledge about how breast cancer cells respond to naturally-occurring signaling proteins and could lead to the development of one of these proteins as part of a therapeutic regimen for breast cancer.
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Previously trained at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Wilken plans to investigate a recently-described protein that inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells in the laboratory. Because most cancer treatments involve more than one medication, the next step is to study how this protein interacts with other protein-based breast cancer therapies, including Herceptin. Dr. Wilken will measure the effect of this protein on breast cancer cells either by itself or in combination with other proteins. Dr. Wilken will also carry out a set of experiments on cells representative of different types of breast cancer, in order to determine whether the new protein is more effective against a particular subset of cancers.
Success in this project could lead to the new protein entering pre-clinical studies, as well as a better sense of which tumors it will be most effective in treating. Ultimately, it should lead to improved combination therapies for breast cancer.
Honorable Mention
Dr. Elizabeth Yeh, PhD
Describing Pathways to Breast Cancer
Duke University Department of Pharmacology
Elizabeth Yeh, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke, is exploring the ways that cells decide whether or not to multiply, and how those processes go wrong in the development of breast cancer. She has identified a protein that may play a critical part in the growth of many breast cancers, and has proposed a set of experiments to better describe its role. Success could lead to new targets for future breast cancer therapies.
Honorable Mention
Developing Cancer Vaccines
Christopher Woo
Duke University School of Medicine
Christopher Woo, a medical student at Duke, is designing new vaccine therapies for breast cancer. Working in one of the world’s foremost cancer vaccine laboratories, he is designing a vaccine against a protein found in 90% of breast cancers. His challenge is to create a vaccine that will lead the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells while sparing healthy ones. Success would bring the dream of a vaccine therapy for cancer one step closer.
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| University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center
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The latest of NRGF’s institutional partnership gifts has been made to the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center (UWCCC) at the end of 2004. This gift, administered at UWCCC by senior oncologist Ian Robins, MD, PhD, is directed to support the UWCCC Breast Brachytherapy Group’s research into successful delivery of targeted radiation after lumpectomy for breast cancer.
Radiation therapy, which Nancy Gelman received later on in the course of her cancer treatment, has increasingly become an accepted strategy right after lumpectomy, surgery that removes a breast tumor while conserving as much of the surrounding healthy tissue as possible. Radiation helps to kill any cancer cells left behind after surgery, but its side effects include scarring and the treatment course often requires six weeks of regular visits. In some patients, it has been suggested that radiation to healthy breast tissue carries some risk of developing another cancer later, although this risk is outweighed by the benefits of the radiation.
The UW Breast Brachytherapy Group, led by Dr. Rakesh Patel, MD, has a strategy to deliver radiation directly to the tissue surrounding the surgical site while minimizing the exposure of more distant tissue and drastically shortening the length of treatment. This technique, brachytherapy, in which radioactive “seeds” are temporarily inserted into the breast itself through precisely placed catheters, was originally developed to treat prostate cancer but is gaining acceptance for a variety of other cancers.
Dr. Patel’s group, which has the highest volume of breast brachytherapy procedures in the U.S., is currently conducting a clinical trial of breast brachytherapy to determine which patients may benefit most from this technique. NRGF is proud to support Dr. Patel’s research; more information is available at www.breastbrachytherapy.com.
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| Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation
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The Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation (ABCF) is a community-based all volunteer breast cancer support and advocacy in San Antonio, Texas, with 170 members. ABCF has no paid staff and operates on the nearly 15,000 hours of volunteer time donated to the agency each year.
As a grassroots organization, ABCF understands the importance of disseminating information to the public. With the assistance of a partnership grant from NRGF, ABCF will hold a public meeting to share research highlights from the 2006 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
The ABCF's public forum, to be held in January 2007, will present medical research as actionable, accessible information. The forum will serve up to 300 members of the public, including healthcare providers who cannot attend the four-day Symposium.
ABCF's goal is to empower the public and the medical community with new information that could save women's lives. The information to be presented can be used by:- Health care consumers in making informed decisions
- Health care providers in offering new treatments
- Advocates for their own or others' health care
The science of breast cancer is changing quickly, especially as the field of genetics informs new approaches to treatment. The news from medical laboratories can save lives and can help women get through cancer treatments with fewer side effects and less misery. ABCF's public forum will help disseminate information about these discoveries to those in need of the information.
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