COLLABORATING TO CONQUERCANCER

SUMMER 2010

the Melanoma

PuzzleLiving Longer and Better

a Conversationrodney Page, DVM

aMC Cancer Fund connects UCCC, community

A Newsletter for the University of Colorado Cancer Center | Anschutz Medical Campus

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theodorescu LugerJedlickaKochevar

CEntEr nEWs

theodorescu takes the reins at UCCCDan theodorescu, MD, PhD, took the reins as director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center on July 1, 2010. Read more about Dr. Theodorescu’s new philosophy for UCCC on the back cover.

Kochevar joins UCCC as chief administratorMark Kochevar, MBa, joined UCCC on July 19 as associate director for administration & finance. He comes from the Medical College of Georgia Cancer Center, where he led the administrative development and management of that newly established center.

Kochevar spent the first 17 years of his career at the National Cancer Institute as an administrator for cancer treatment and causation programs. He was then the administrative director for the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, where he led the administrative effort to get NCI center designation. Notably, he helped that center gain long-term funding for cancer research under the State of Maryland Cigarette Restitution Funds Program.

Page is new director of CsU animal Cancer Centerrodney Page, DVM, is the new director of the Flint Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University, taking over from founder Steven Withrow,

DVM, who will work with Page over the next two years to transition leadership before he retires. Read a Q&A with Dr. Page on page 3.

Jedlicka is inaugural Boettcher investigator, gets alex’s Lemonade stand Young investigator awardPaul Jedlicka, MD, PhD, is one of three University of Colorado scientists to be named inaugural Boettcher Investigators, an award that shares a $700,000 pool of grant money. The program supports early-career biomedical investigators working to make a direct impact on human health.

Jedlicka also received a two-year, $80,000 Young Investigator Award from the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer to continue work on microRNAs identified by his laboratory that may suppress Ewing’s sarcoma tumors. He’ll use the Boettcher Investigator funding to look at other sets of microRNA that may regulate the development of Ewing’s sarcoma.

shen named 2010 Pew scholarJingshi shen, PhD has been named a 2010 Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences. Shen, who is assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at University of Colorado at Boulder, will receive $240,000 over four years to investigate how T cells are secreted by the human body to kill cancer cells.

Luger, nyborg, stargell win $7.8 million program project grantThree CSU scientists will use a $7.8 million NIH program project grant to investigate how the human chromosome untangles to expose genes that dictate cell behavior. Karolin Luger, PhD, shares the grant with Jennifer Nyborg, PhD, and Laurie Stargell, both basic scientists at CSU. In addition to funding their own collaborative research, they will use the money to train new scientists and maintain three centers: one to manufacture histone and other chromatin reagents, one to examine the protein structure, and one to share the reagents and data with other researchers.

Colo. cancer patients win big as gov. ritter signs two patient access bills into lawCancer patients in Colorado scored a big win on May 17 as Gov. Bill Ritter signed two bills into law that increase their access to anti-cancer therapies. The first law requires insurance companies in Colorado to cover oral chemo drugs for the same co-insurance or copay patients would pay for IV or injected drugs. The second law requires insurance companies to cover the cost of anti-cancer drugs recognized by the US Department of Health and Human Services as effective against cancer regardless of the specific type of cancer the drug was initially approved to treat—so called “off label” use.

Cancer Center expands at University of Colorado HospitalUniversity of Colorado Hospital—UCCC’s adult care partner—will increase the size of the 108,000-square-foot Anschutz Cancer Pavilion by 40 percent in a $20 million expansion project slated to open in 2013.

Since the pavilion opened in 2001, patient visits have more than doubled, and several areas have seen triple-digit increases.As the Anschutz Medical Campus becomes the state’s health care city, growth will continue on a sharp trajectory, UCH officials say.

With 38,567 new square feet, the center will be able to treat 11,450 more patients a year. New and renovated space will add to the clinical cancer research program and create a more efficient and comfortable environment for patients and caregivers alike.

The project includes 18 new infusion bays, bringing the number of chairs from 24 to 42. Clinic rooms will increase from 24 to 37. The project also adds office space, team rooms and an additional radiation-therapy vault. It’s part of a larger, $400 million hospital expansion that includes building a new patient care tower with as many as 288 more beds, a bigger emergency department and more parking.

read more about the project and support it with a donation by visiting www.uch.edu.

ConVErsation

Rodney Page, DVM: Director, Flint Animal Cancer CenterProfessor, Medical Oncology, Colorado State University

A Conversation With

Rodney Page, DVM

C3: What prompted you to return to CSU?Page: I went to vet school here, and although the Animal Cancer Center hadn’t formally developed when I was a student, I chose to specialize in cancer because of the influence of faculty at the vet school. It’s now the most prestigious comparative cancer center in the world.

C3: What is a comparative cancer center?Page: It’s a center that focuses, both in clinicalcare and research, on controlling cancer in companion animals as well as humans. We use many of the unique advantages of pets that develop cancer to investigate the cause, prevention and treatment of cancer to benefit every species. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has a Comparative Oncology Program, and about 15 centers around the country compete for funds to study cancer in pets as a model system for humans. CSU is the largest and the best—of course. The lessons we learn about cancer in pets can be applied to humans more accurately, in many instances, than data from rodent models used in most labs.

C3: How does treatment and research in pets with cancer apply to human cancer? Page: Dogs and cats live in the sameenvironment as we do. They are affected by environmental exposures, nutrition and lifestyle choices, like us. They get many of the same kinds of cancers and the clinical course is remarkably similar. NCI recognizes the dog as a relevant model in studying common cancers such as lymphoma, bone cancer, melanoma and breast cancer. Many of the premier comprehensive cancer centers in the country

have developed affiliations with veterinary institutions to promote complementary studies. UCCC and CSU have been affiliated for more than 20 years.

C3: What are we learning from other species?Page: I’ve had experience with some unique and interesting animal systems that spontaneously develop specific types of cancer. For example, the domestic hen is a model for spontaneously occurring ovarian cancer in women. Up to 50 percent of hens maintained in captivity are likely to develop cancer. This is believed to result from daily, continuous ovulation stress over the lifetime of the hen. Biomarkers of early diagnosis are easier to identify with a population such as this. The molecular similarities between ovarian cancers in chickens and in women only got a foothold in the past five or ten years, but such a unique resource may hold clues for many important questions for ovarian cancer in women.

The woodchuck is an excellent model of [liver cancer] due to the woodchuck hepatitis virus. Human hepatocellular carcinoma is a leading cause of cancer death worldwide and the woodchuck model has been used successfully to investigate antiviral and cancer compounds.

One of the strangest models of cancer is the clam. Polluted water around Buzzards Bay, Mass., has been traced to leukemia in the clam population. There are likely many such potential “canaries in the coal mine” that relate to environmental effects of pollution on organisms that share our habitat and that could impact human health.

C3: Why does it make sense for CSU to be part of the University of Colorado Cancer Center?Page: We bring resources that complement UCCC, and we can leverage each other’s resources in mutually beneficial ways. Our strengths lie in parallel clinical studies with companion animals that develop cancer that are managed with the same care as studies in humans. In addition, as veterinarians we have the expertise to help with other comparative cancer projects, which is critical for the basic and translational research we do.

UCCC and CSU have had a formal affiliation for over 20 years. The UCCC Pharmacology Core, for example, provides drug analysis for UCCC members, and it’s located at CSU and run by Dr. Dan Gustafson, one of our faculty members. UCCC directly supports that core function. We could consider how other core functions might be developed collaboratively. We could also develop more cancer education and outreach opportunities to serve northern Colorado, and perhaps reduce the cost of doing business by locating some collective resources to Fort Collins from Denver.

Please support UCCC: www.uccc.info/give.

On July 1, Rodney Page, DVM, became director of Colorado State University’s

Animal Cancer Center after 11 years at Cornell University College of Veterinary

Medicine. At Cornell he was chair of Clinical Sciences, a founding director of the

Sprecher Institute for Comparative Cancer Research and administrative director of

the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors. But Dr. Page is

not new to Colorado.

CoLLaBoration

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story by Michele Conklin, Photos by glenn asakawa

the Melanoma PuzzleAdvances in treatment for the deadliest form of skin

cancer are aligning, bringing patients new hope.

CoLLaBoration

Sitting around the dinner table each night, Shannon Clark and her three children play a game they call “High-Low” when each person shares the high point and the low point of their day.

On Jan. 26, Clark’s high and low points came in one phone call.

Her oncologist, Karl Lewis, MD, at the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora, had phoned her with bad news. Her stage IV melanoma had progressed and she had a large stomach tumor that was blocking one kidney from functioning.

The news came 17 months after she was diagnosed—a miracle amount of time in the world of advanced melanoma where there is no cure and patients live only nine months on average. Still, a blink of time when you’re a single mother raising three children.

It was definitely a low moment. But it was what Lewis said next that Clark clung to.

“I have something for you,” he told Shannon. “We’re opening a trial that has shown some good results and there’s a spot for you.”

“It wasn’t just his words, it was the tone of his voice, the excitement in his voice, that gave me hope,” Clark, 34, of Fort Collins, says.

DELiCatE DECisionsNearly 70,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with melanoma this year, according to the American Cancer Society. The vast majority will have early stage melanoma that is cured by removing it from the skin.

But when melanoma spreads into the lymph nodes or organs, there is no cure. Only two drugs have ever been approved to treat melanoma: dacarbazine and Interleukin 2. But these drugs have never actually been shown to improve overall survival in randomized clinical trials.

Fifty percent of patients treated with these drugs survive past one year—the same percentage of people who receive no treatment at all.

Hope for these patients lies in clinical trials of new drugs. Determining which drug to use, however, becomes a bit like solving a Rubik’s cube where each twist counters another. Physicians have to understand all the trials currently available, as well as those that are soon to open and the requirements for each, so that they can organize treatments in a sequence that will not preclude the patient from being eligible for a different treatment down the road. The goal is to eke out weeks and months of quality life before the cancer recurs, while always leaving another option in reserve.

“The question always is: What do we do next?” says Lewis, an assistant professor of medical oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (SOM) who specializes in melanoma. “It’s never easy. We try to leave as many doors open as possible. Unfortunately, some patients come to us after they’ve been treated with something we know to be ineffective that then excludes them from a trial.”

Last year, UCCC’s melanoma program treated more than 450 new patients, ranking it as one of the top centers in the country with M.D. Anderson and Memorial-Sloan Kettering. These centers not only treat patients, but they are also the leading research institutes conducting clinical trials at every level into new treatments for melanoma. UCCC members also conduct laboratory research in areas such as identifying strategies to overcome melanoma resistance to treatment, and can quickly adapt research back and forth from lab to patients.

First rEaL BrEaKtHroUgHsClark was first diagnosed with melanoma in 2003 when a cancerous spot was removed from her shoulder. Like 98 percent of people diagnosed with melanoma that has not spread, Clark was considered cured.

Five years later—almost to the day—Clark felt a bump on her head. She wasn’t worried about cancer because her latest x-rays and blood tests at the oncologist were clear. Because she worked at a radiology facility, she decided to have the bump scanned just in case.

“That was the day my life as I knew it changed forever,” says Clark, a petite woman with blonde hair and fair skin who remembers getting badly burned while growing up in Estes Park. Sunburns are one of the known risk factors of skin cancer.

Clark decided to first try a holistic approach. She eliminated meats, processed foods and sugars from her diet, and added large doses of vitamins. Within two months, however, with her cancer continuing to grow, she decided to try biochemotherapy—a vicious regimen of five chemotherapy drugs that requires hospitalization for five days every three weeks.

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When shannon began taking the experimental anti-melanoma pills, an abdominal tumor (photo left) made her look several months pregnant. the treatment has shrunk the tumor considerably, and today it’s “stable”—neither shrinking nor growing.

Mary Cook and andrea Buchmeier make sure cancer clinical trials go smoothly on all fronts. trials of new drugs are the bedrock of modern cancer care.

CoLLaBoration

“If you weren’t scared when you were told you had melanoma, you were when they told you about this,” Clark says. “But I was ready to beat this monster for my kids. I came with my fighting gloves on.”

Although controversial due to unreliable outcomes and severe toxicity, biochemotherapy may result in a response in some patients. Clark was one of those few—her tumors stopped growing after the second round.

She received seven rounds of biochemotherapy at University of Colorado Hospital—UCCC’s adult clinical partner—followed by eight months of reduced biochemotherapy maintenance before her cancer started growing again. By January, she had lived twice as long as the statistics predicted.

“No one can tell me how long I have to live,” says Clark, sitting in a conference room at the Cancer Center with her children—15-year-old

Shane, 10-year-old Blake and 8-year-old MacKenzie. “You don’t know; I don’t know. All we know is what we have today.”

And what Clark was offered that day in January when her cancer returned was a new drug that was showing promise in other melanoma patients. “At that time, physicians were talking about seeing results in days,” Clark says. “From day one (on the trial drug), my stomach (tumor) started melting away.”

The drug Clark was put on, still in clinical trials, is known as PLX4032. The drug blocks the action of a gene known as BRAF that is mutated in about half of melanoma patients. Now entering the last phase of clinical trials, the drug appears to stop the disease from progressing for about six to nine months, Lewis says.

“The reality is that this cancer will probably find a way around most drugs,” he says. “Although we are always searching for a cure, it may be more realistic to turn cancer into a chronic disease, like diabetes, that you don’t cure but rather you manage.”

attaCKing tWo FrontsUCCC is one of just 14 centers in the world—and the third largest test site—with access to PLX4032. That trial is one of about a dozen melanoma clinical trials that the center is currently conducting.

“It’s an exciting time in melanoma research,” says Rene Gonzalez, MD, director of the melanoma program and professor of medical oncology at the SOM.

Gonzalez doesn’t make that claim lightly. This is the first time in his 25 years of specializing in melanoma that he’s seeing treatments make a difference. Interleukin 2 was the last drug to be approved for treatment—in the mid-1990s. Even then the drug showed no improvement in survivability over doing nothing.

Researchers are making advances on two fronts—molecular biology and immunology. The molecular biology drugs attempt to identify and

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Dr. rené gonzalez sees a patient at University of Colorado Hospital. the cutaneous oncology clinic has

about 450 new patients each year —and the highest five-year survival rates for melanoma in Colorado.

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CoLLaBoration

block genetic mutations that cause cancer. Immunology treatments seek to use the body’s natural defenses to fight the cancer.

UCCC recently participated in the Phase III trial—the final test before a drug is considered for widespread use—of an immunologic drug that shows the first-ever survival benefit in melanoma patients. The drug, called ipilimumab, allows the body’s immune system to continue to fight the cancer cells.

“This is the only drug that has ever shown improved survival results in melanoma,” Gonzalez says. “And we have it right now (at UCCC), even before it’s been approved by the FDA.”

ExPanDing triaLs to MorE PatiEntsCurrently, UCCC is collecting data for approximately 500 clinical trials in 10 cancer areas, including melanoma, with between 150 and 200 of those open to enrollment of new patients, says Andrea Buchmeier, director of clinical research. The clinical research program has doubled in number of trials, number of enrolled patients and number of staff in the past six years, she says.

And still that’s not enough.

“It’s difficult to tell a patient that they can’t get into a trial or that a trial is not open yet,” says Mary Cook, BSN, the clinical research coordinator for melanoma trials. “It’s heart-breaking when you know that this person may die before you can get the trial open.”

Cook and her staff work side-by-side with the medical team and patients, ensuring that every appointment is scheduled, lab test conducted and reaction recorded. Inevitably, that means becoming close to patients—in bad times and in good.

“We’re treating a woman who went from lying in bed in a fetal position to being up and about for the past seven months,” Cook says. “Seeing that kind of improvement in quality of life keeps you going.”

As is so often the case in health care, funding is always an issue. The cancer clinical research program has an annual budget of $5 million and runs in the red every year. About 40 percent of the clinical trials are paid for by pharmaceutical companies. The remaining 60 percent are unfunded or underfunded trials initiated by CU physicians, by other cancer cooperative research groups or by the NCI.

“There’s this misconception that drug companies pay for all our research,” Buchmeier says. “But the majority of our work is trials that our physicians or physicians from other cancer centers have written that could fundamentally change how we treat cancer. It’s what makes us a comprehensive cancer center.”

In the past 15 years, the melanoma program has enrolled more than 1,200 patients on clinical trials, including patients from as far away as London and Amsterdam. The melanoma clinic will log more than 4,500 patient visits this year.

“When you see that many patients and you participate in that many trials, you offer patients the greatest chance of finding something that works,” Gonzalez says. “We’re in line to get drugs that are not even in clinical trials yet.”

Gonzalez doesn’t take sides in whether he thinks the biggest breakthrough will come from the genetic therapies or the immunologic therapies. “I’ll use whatever drug works,” he says.

For Clark, the drug that is working for now is PLX4032. And if that stops working? She’ll think about that when the time comes.

“I embrace what I have right now,” she says as she smiles across the table at her children.

Please support UCCC: www.uccc.info/give.

Dr. Karl Lewis and clinical trials coordinator rolando galleon work side by side to ensure

patients on clinical trials get the best possible care.

shannon, a single mom to shane, Blake and MacKenzie, believes that hope, faith, love and family have made her “beat the expiration dates” several doctors have given her.

CLiniCaL CarE

Pediatric radiation oncology is the proverbial double-edged sword. On one hand, there are few specialists because there isn’t a lot of demand. One the other hand, for the youngest cancer patients, treatment presents challenges only a specialist such as Arthur Liu, MD, PhD, are equipped to provide.

Liu is director of pediatric radiation oncology at University of Colorado Hospital and The Children’s Hospital, which are located across the street from each other on Aurora’s Anschutz Medical Campus. UCH has long provided radiation therapy for kids, who receive other cancer care at Children’s. Liu’s job is to bridge the gap between pediatric cancer doctors and adult radiation therapy doctors.

“Kids are more challenging to take care of,” says Liu, the only pediatric radiation oncology specialist in Colorado. “Children aren’t ‘supposed’ to get cancer, so I often have to spend lots of time with the parents and family helping them come to terms with the diagnosis.”

And although radiation treatment itself isn’t painful, the process can very difficult for a young child, who must lie still and whose family can’t be in the room during treatment. To make treatment less traumatic, kids may get anesthesia. UCH is one of the few hospitals in the region that can anesthetize children. The great majority of radiation oncologists are uncomfortable treating children at all, Liu says, noting the physical effects of radiation on children can be complicated, especially in terms of “late effects”—side effects that are worse in a growing, developing child’s brain, such as learning disabilities.

“The late effects of radiation can be significantly greater in children than in adults,” Liu says, “which affects both how I treat the children and how I follow them after completion of treatment.”

As a physician and as a PhD, Liu balances patient care with scientific inquiry. His mission is to find a way to safely minimize the radiation dose and more closely target the cancer in his young patients.

Techniques such as stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), and stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), which involve a more focused, higher dose of radiation therapy over fewer days, have been applied to adults for a long time, but are only recently being used for kids. “In many cases,” Liu says, “we’re learning that the more focused, higher-dose method is more effective.”

Which technique to apply also depends on the type of tumor being treated. For example, a young patient with an incurable malignant brain tumor may benefit from the higher-dose, shorter-term therapy. “If the child has ten months to live, that makes a huge difference because the child will spend less time at the hospital and more time at home. In such a case, it’s a quality of life issue. They may not be living a lot longer, but they’re living better.”

Other brain tumors have a much higher survival rate—moving from 20 percent 50 years ago to 70 to 80 percent today—and are treated with radiation followed by chemotherapy. For 15-year old Emily Gilley, one of Liu’s recent patients [see profile on opposite page], the prognosis is excellent.

Emily, who is considered cured, and other young people with cancer can probably best progress under the care of providers who balance thirst for scientific discovery with simple human empathy. And Dr. Liu is truly empathetic: At 14 he was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma. “As an adolescent, it’s very hard to be different,” he says. “To be sick is to be different based on necessity.”

This is a shift from his early academic training, to which Liu refers as a “meandering path in electrical engineering.” His bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees all are in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But while he was engaged in brain imaging research, Liu did clinical work in neurological disorders. That’s what sparked his interest in medicine and treating people, and what led him to Harvard Medical School. “Working with patients,” he now says, “offered options to have a direct impact on lives.”

Helping Young Patients

Live Longer and BetterBy Mary Lemma

Arthur Liu, MD, PhDspecialty: Pediatric radiation oncologyresearch interests: Minimizing radiation doses andprecise tumor targeting

“As an adolescent, it’s very hard to be different—to

be sick is to be different based on necessity.” ~ Dr. Liu

EMILY GILLEYDiagnosis:Medulloblastoma Physician: Dr. Arthur Liu

“it’s Hard at First, But You get through it”

Emily Gilley seems fairly like any 15-year old. She likes to hang out with friends, read style magazines and mysteries, and enjoys the company of her family and her pets – a Red Heeler / Collie mix and two cats. She’s prepping to get her learner’s permit.

The small-town girl—she’s from Burlington, Colo., a town about 15 miles from the Kansas border—and her family have just returned from a trip to visit her brother in college over the July 4th weekend. She has also just begun a round of chemotherapy that will last through June 2011.

Emily is being treated for a medulloblastoma, a fast-growing type of brain tumor that usually occurs in younger children. The tumor was removed by surgeons at The Children’s Hospital—UCCC’s pediatric clinical partner. Then she underwent six weeks of daily radiation treatment under direction of Colorado’s only pediatric radiation oncologist, UCCC member Arthur Liu, MD, PhD, at University of Colorado Hospital’s leading-edge radiation therapy center.

Emily is participating in a clinical trial to help determine if lower doses of radiation can be used and smaller areas targeted. The trial is still open so results aren’t known yet. “We’re very thankful that she’s participating,” Liu says. “We can’t advance medicine without patients like Emily.”

Her prognosis, Liu says, is excellent.

Before Emily learned about the tumor – she was admitted to Children’s the day it was diagnosed – her long-term goal was to be

an equine veterinarian. For now, though, she says, “I just want my hair back.”

“When you’re 15 you can’t see through the week, let alone the year,” says her mother Nancy.

The operation to remove the tumor and the ensuing radiation treatment forced Emily to miss the last two months at Burlington Middle School. Her mom took 12 weeks off from her job at Kit Carson County Memorial Hospital. She ferried homework between school and Emily’s aunt’s home in Bennett—two hours from home but just 30 minutes from the Anschutz Medical Campus—where Emily stayed Monday through Friday during treatment.

“I did the homework but it wasn’t much fun,” Emily says.

It’s not easy to blend into a crowd when you’ve grown up in a town with a population of less than 4,000, where there is one middle school and one high school (which Emily will enter this fall), so Emily’s ordeal is well known. Her future teachers and classmates at Burlington High are standing by to lend a hand. “Everyone’s being really supportive,” she says. “I’m hearing from kids I haven’t even met yet.”

Although she’s aware of the effects of chemo, Emily appreciates that she won’t be “poked with needles.” The medicine will be introduced through a port just below her collarbone.

If a friend came to Emily and said she needed cancer treatment, what would Emily tell

her? Emily pauses. “That’s a good question. It happened so fast for me. I guess I’d just tell them that it’s hard at first, but you get through it.”

Please support UCCC: www.uccc.info/give.

CLiniCaL CarE

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By Mary Lemma

about Medulloblastoma

Medulloblastoma is a rapidly-growing tumor of the lower, rear portion of the brain that controls balance, posture and complex motor functions such as speech and balance. About 1,000 new patients—children and adults—are diagnosed in the US each year, more often in males than females.

Early symptoms can include lethargy, irritability and loss of appetite. In infants, increased head size and irritability may be the first symptoms. Older children and adults may experience headaches and vomiting upon awakening.

Current treatment of medulloblastoma in older children and adults consists of surgically removing as much tumor as possible, followed by brain and spine radiation and chemotherapy. Radiation has proven effective, but researchers are exploring new ways to lower the potential side effects of this treatment.

The American Brain TumorAssociation www.abta.org

CoMMUnitY

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MARGARET AND DAVID GROHNEarEas sUPPortED: Breast Cancer, Cancer Stem Cells, Research Infrastructure

By Jeremy Simon, University of Colorado Foundation

Margaret Grohne knows firsthand the importance of mitigating, preventing and eradicating cancer. She is a breast cancer survivor, and her sister and brother-in-law have also been stricken by cancer.

Margaret and her husband David, alumni of the University of Colorado at Boulder, have been long-time supporters of numerous CU programs, including the University of Colorado Cancer Center.

“We’re both interested in cancer research, and we wanted to see more research,” Margaret Grohne says.

In recognition of UCCC’s research track record and potential for significant discoveries, the Grohnes have pledged $2.6 million to support research in the areas of breast cancer, stem cell research, and cancer vaccinations. They’ve donated over $10 million in total, making them UCCC’s most generous donors.

“The Grohnes want to support high-quality research here in Colorado, and they’ve been incredibly generous to us,” says Andrew Thorburn, PhD, UCCC deputy director and chair of pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (SOM).

sUPPort For FaCiLitiEs, PrograMs, PEoPLEOver the years, the Grohnes have supported a variety of causes at UCCC. Their donations helped build cancer research space on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

Other gifts have funded three endowed chairs: the Grohne Chair in Basic Cancer Research, held by Thorburn; the Grohne

Chair in Clinical Oncology, held by Laurie Gaspar, MD, MBA, professor and chair of radiation oncology at the SOM; and the Grohne Chair in Cancer Prevention and Control, held by Tim Byers, MD, MPH, professor and associate dean of the Colorado School of Public Health.

FoCUs on BrEast CanCErThe Grohnes’ new gift—a mix of current and endowed funds—will be used for several breast cancer projects. Thorburn will use part of the funding to pursue new ways to treat and prevent breast cancer via a process that affects tumor development called autophagy. Manipulating the autophagy process could have promising ramifications, Thorburn says.

The funding will also help UCCC’s Young Women’s Breast Cancer Translational Research Program investigate whether manipulating the immune system can improve survival and eventually prevent breast cancer in young women, which is often more aggressive than in older women. The program is led by Virginia Borges, MD, MMSc, and Pepper Schedin, PhD, associate professor and professor, respectively, of medical oncology at the SOM.

“A gift like the Grohnes’ allows us to expand our research faster by building the infrastructure we need and investigating new ideas that we don’t already have data for,” Borges says. “That’s particularly important because without data, we can’t apply for traditional grants, and the new ideas are the ones we hope will help our patients even more. This is a fabulous opportunity for us to grow the breadth and depth of our program, such as expanding our current research trials to young women with breast cancer across the country.”

Peter Kabos, MD, assistant professor of medical oncology at the SOM, will also receive funding for his work on the role of cancer stem cells in breast cancer. Specifically, his lab will begin creating two new models of breast cancer that he hopes will help answer questions such as how breast cancer stem cells interact with the rest of a tumor and its environment, and how they respond to hormones. The goal of these studies is to ultimately bring more effective therapies to patients with breast cancer.

“Getting private funding as junior faculty is an enormous boost. It helps to develop ideas faster and start projects that are more ambitious, generating data for federal (National Institutes of Health)-level funding.” Kabos said. “In this harsh federal funding environment, it is fantastic that the Grohnes are willing to support new ideas and areas of research.”

Early-stage research like Thorburn’s is far more dependent on private donors, whose gifts can have a multiplier effect when such seed funding leads to federal research grants down the road. The Grohnes’ generosity is enhanced further because they are unrestricted research funds, increasing UCCC’s flexibility. Thorburn says, “These sorts of gifts are the lifeblood that keep the Cancer Center going.”

Margaret Grohne says her biggest motivation for the gift was to give back to the university that has given her and her husband so much, and to conquer this devastating disease.

“We all are looking for a cure,” she says.

Please support UCCC: www.uccc.info/give.

golfers against Cancer raises $50k

Scott Pearson, here with wife Geri,

formed Denver Golfers Against

Cancer to raise money for cancer

research being done in Colorado.

The first annual golf tournament

and dinner, held Aug. 9, raised

$50,000. GAC funding will be

combined with money from AMC

Cancer Fund to support at least two

innovative cancer research projects

this year.

Kolhouse fund a tribute to dedicated physician’s workFred Kolhouse, MD, an architect

of UCCC’s clinical mission, passed

away on June 17 at age 67 from

gastric cancer.

During his 33 years as a Colorado

hematologist and oncologist,

Kolhouse took care of thousands

of people at University of Colorado

Hospital and at clinics in Alamosa

and Montrose. He was UCCC’s

associate director for clinical science,

and he collaborated for years with

Wilbur Franklin, MD, professor

of pathology at the University of

Colorado School of Medicine on

creating new tests for cancer.

“Many patients have already

benefited from these tests, which

wouldn’t exist without the wonderful

collaboration I had with Fred for

so many years,” Franklin said.

“We expect the technology will

benefit all oncologists and, most of

all, people afflicted with potentially

lethal cancers.”

You can make a contribution to

continue Kolhouse’s research at

www.cufund.edu/kolhouse, or by

mailing a check to:

The University of Colorado Foundation

1380 Lawrence St., Ste. 1325

Denver, CO 80204.

Please make payable to

‘CU Foundation’ and write

‘J. Frederic Kolhouse MD Cancer

Research Fund’ in the memo.

Please support UCCC: www.uccc.info/give.

WWW.UCCC.inFo/C3 | C3: sUMMEr 2010 | 11

CoMMUnitY nEWs

AMC Cancer Fund, as partner of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, focuses on community outreach, awareness and fundraising efforts to benefit the programs at UCCC. Through volunteerism, events, workplace giving, corporate partnerships and donations, AMC has provided over $11 million in funds to UCCC since 2005.

2010 gift of Life and Breath 5KAMC was proud to host and support the 4th Annual Gift of Life and Breath 5K, sponsored by Novus Biologicals, LLC, and founder Thelissa Zollinger. Together, we built on three years of momentum and raised

$80,000, bringing the event’s fundraising to almost $500,000 for UCCC member Michael Weyant, MD, and his early lung cancer detection research. Next year’s race is May 21, 2011.

First Women’s EventThe First Annual Women’s Event on June 9 raised $14,000 and generated challenge grants for UCCC’s Young Women’s Breast Cancer Translational Research Program. AMC supporters Walter and Laura Dear challenged guests to match their personal donation of $10,000, and donors are rising to the challenge. The event featured Jonna Tamases’s one-woman play, “Jonna’s Body, Please Hold,” which

chronicles her life as a three-time cancer survivor. Her funny, touching performance was so well received that we invited her to perform “Girl Manifesto” on Feb. 3, 2011.

aMC Cancer Fund connects UCCC, community

aMC community relations director nancy stewart, Dr. Virginia Borges, aMC executive director alice norton

and Jonna tamases at the Women’s Event in June.

genetech donation will help train translational researchers

Genentech, Inc. has donated $215,703 to the University of Colorado

Developmental Therapeutics Training Program (DTTP).

“We need more physicians and scientists who can evaluate the next generation

of new anticancer agents in a team science environment where they’re being

developed,” says S. Gail Eckhardt, MD, DTTP director and division head of

medical oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “UCCC

is charged with training the next generation of cancer scientists. Genentech’s

gift will go a long way in supporting our efforts.”

Most anticancer agents are tested by medical oncologists, she says, but

traditional medical oncology training may not focus on teaching doctors to

evaluate the agents in a scientific manner—a critical skill as cancer treatment

moves toward personalized, targeted treatments. What’s more, anticancer

agent development also depends on scientists who are involved in a wide range

of disciplines related to drug discovery and development.

“Hundreds of biotechnology startups are developing new cancer treatments,

but many don’t have experienced investigators who know how to take the

treatments they design in the lab through the entire process needed to begin

human testing,” Eckhardt said. “Taken together, the DTTP will provide

the formalized instruction necessary for physicians and scientists to participate

in research teams that develop new agents for cancer prevention and therapy.”

Dr. thomas Flaig, here with his lab members, is a medical oncologist who trained to be a translational researcher. He does lab research, clinical trials and cares for patients with bladder, prostate and kidney cancer.

13001 East 17th Place, MSF434Aurora, CO 80045-0511

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTEDC3: Collaborating to Conquer CancerPublished three times a year by University of Colorado Denver for friends, members and the community of the University of Colorado Cancer Center. (No research money has been used for this publication.)

Editor: Lynn G. Clark303-724-3160, Lynn.Clark@ucdenver.edu

Contributing Writers: Mary Lemma, Michele Conklin and Jeremy SimonPhotos: Lynn Clark and Glenn Asakawa, CU PhotographyDesign: Ebb+Flow Design

The University of Colorado Cancer Center is Colorado’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. Headquartered on the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, UCCC is a consortium of three universities and five institutions that are dedicated to cancer care, research, education and prevention and control.

UCCC Consortium MembersUniversitiesColorado State UniversityUniversity of Colorado at BoulderUniversity of Colorado DenverInstitutionsUniversity of Colorado HospitalThe Children’s HospitalNational Jewish Health Denver Health Medical CenterDenver Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Visit us on the web: www.uccc.info

UCCC is dedicated to equal opportunity and access in all aspects of employment and patient care.

SUMMER 2010w w w.uccc.info/c3

Over the past 22 years, the leaders, members and staff of UCCC have built a strong foundation and structure of basic cancer research, clinical care and cancer prevention and control programs. Now, as I step in as director and we enter a new phase, we will be re-engineering the structure to make it stronger more contemporary and responsive to the immense changes we are experiencing in biomedicine and cancer research for the next 22 years.

Our main impetus for change is twofold: new leadership and the resubmission of the National Cancer Institute grant that funds us. The Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG), which is renewed every five years, brings $22 million to support our infrastructure during that time. Putting the CCSG together is no small feat. It requires input from all corners of our organization.

When we are done with the CCSG process in January, we’ll not only have a broad view of what we’re good at now, we’ll also be very clear about where we’re going. We will have a new strategic plan and a new way of doing business based on mission, empowerment and accountability for results.

It’s important to me that everyone in our organization, and those who support us, are heard. To that effect, in my first two months on the job as UCCC director, I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know leaders at our consortium institutions. The purpose of these meetings, as well as dozens of others, is to bring a more inclusive approach to what we do. Our center will excel if we nurture the natural chemistry and synergies among our consortium members. Indeed we have some novel administrative and leadership structures in development that will cross-pollinate the various research within the consortium with those of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, with the aim to nurture and enhance translational research.

If I’m successful, I will inspire smart scientists in Colorado to focus their attention and resources on cancer…and that includes not only biologists but also mathematicians, physicists, chemists and engineers. We need to make new connections and cross classical disciplinary lines to reinvent how we do cancer research to take advantage of strengths here in Colorado in multidisciplinary research.

I will also implement my vision for seamless multidisciplinary patient experience coupled with Colorado’s leading cancer survival rates that our patients already have at University of Colorado Hospital.

That’s how we’ll make a difference in cancer.

Sincerely,

Dan Theodorescu, MD PhDDirector, University of Colorado Cancer CenterPaul Bunn Chair of Cancer Research

University of Colorado Denver Non-profit organizationU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDDenver, CO

Permit No. 831

DirECtor’s MEssagE

re-Engineering and re-Energizing the University of Colorado Cancer Center