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The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation
2019 Symposium
Discloses Advances in Research and
New Approaches to Cancer Treatment
The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF) announced
groundbreaking summaries of its research advances from the past
year at the 2019 SWCRF Breakthroughs Scientific Symposium at
the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine at Mount
Sinai Medical Center. The event brought together more than 100
SWCRF grantees, scientific leaders and stakeholders to mark the
conclusion of the annual two-day SWCRF Scientific Review, an
evaluation of SWCRF funded research programs.
Notable cancer investigators funded by the SWCRF
along with members of the SWCRF Scientific Board spoke on the
research discoveries that were reported on during the SWCRF
Scientific review. These included advances developing novel
therapeutics based on new understandings of epigenetic and
genetic mechanisms associated with cancer development and
progression, how cancer cells become dormant or reawaken to
spread through metastasis, successes in treating childhood
leukemia and the role bacteria may play in pancreatic cancer.
Samuel Waxman, M.D.,
Founder and CEO of the SWCRF also shared updates to the
foundation’s partnership with the National Cancer Institute
(NCI) and National Institute on Aging (NIA), which launched in
2018 to spearhead research focused on understanding the links
between aging and cancer. He also announced that the SWCRF
recently issued Request for Proposals for eight research grants
up to $200,000 each. The SWCRF expects to award the grants in
July with some of the research focused on aging and cancer.
“We know that the incidences of cancer increase
with age but what we need to understand is what underlying
mechanisms associated with aging happen at the cellular level to
cause the development of cancer. The partnership among the SWCRF,
NCI and NIA is furthering research in aging and cancer that
historically has fallen behind,” said Dr. Waxman.
“The research on aging and cancer that Dr. Waxman
and the SWCRF are advancing will help identify the genetic
footprint of cancer development that is age dependent,” said Ross
L. Levine, M.D., Chair in Leukemia Research and Director,
Memorial Sloan Kettering for Hematologic Malignancies, and a
SWCRF research grantee. “Since aging is associated with a
variety of chronic disease, we hope that the impact of the
research funded by the SWCRF will be greater than one type of
disease related to aging.”
Other presenters included Dena K. Weiner,
Vice President of the SWCRF Board of Directors, SWCRF Chief
Science Officer Jonathan Licht, M.D., Director of the
University of Florida Health Cancer Center, members of the SWCRF
Scientific Advisory Board, Lorraine Gudas, Ph.D., Chairman
of Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical Center and Martin S.
Tallman, M.D., Chief, Leukemia Service at Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center and SWCRF-funded investigators, Julio
Aguirre-Ghiso, Ph.D., Professor, Medicine, Hematology and
Medical Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount
Sinai; Ethan Dmitrovsky, M.D., Director at the Frederick
National Laboratory for Cancer Research; and Shai Izraeli,
M.D., Director of the Department of Hematology-Oncology at
Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel, and
William T. Sullivan, Executive Director of the SWCRF.
About the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research
Foundation
The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation is a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to curing and
preventing cancer. The Foundation is a pioneer in cancer
research and its mission is to eradicate cancer by funding
cutting-edge research that identifies and corrects abnormal gene
function that causes cancer. This research is the basis for
developing minimally toxic treatments for patients. Through the
Foundation’s collaborative group of world-class scientists, the
Institute Without Walls, investigators share information and
tools to speed the pace of cancer research. Since its inception
in 1976, the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation has
awarded approximately $100 million to support the work of more
than 200 researchers across the globe.
For more information, visit: www.waxmancancer.org |