One of the top centers supported by the T.J. Martell Foundation is the Frances Williams Preston Laboratories at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tennessee. The Frances Williams Preston Laboratories, directed by Harold L. Moses, M.D., are dedicated to conducting pioneering, high-impact research with the potential to lead to innovations in cancer treatment. Support from the Martell Foundation is strategically used to produce discoveries that can be leveraged for large grant support from the National Cancer Institute and other sources. In fact, the more than $15 million that the Martell Foundation has invested in work by Vanderbilt-Ingram scientists has led to more than $100 million in additional federal research support.
The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, led by director Jennifer Pietenpol, Ph.D., is one of a select group of 39 NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States and one of only a handful in the Southeast. Vanderbilt-Ingram, consistently recognized as one of the nation’s leading centers for cancer care by US News and World Report, is one of 21 of the world's leading centers in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a collaboration to improve the quality of cancer care for patients everywhere. The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has led the way in establishing a new generation of treatments for such major cancer killers as lung, colon and pancreatic cancer and is ranked among the top 10 based on competitive research funding from the National Cancer Institute – an objective indication of the quality of its science.
For more information about the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, visit vicc.org
Martell Foundation Fuels Scientific Engine at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
A “laboratory without walls,” the T.J. Martell Foundation’s Frances Williams Preston Laboratories were created 15 years ago at what would become the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Directed by Dr. Harold L. Moses, the founding director of Vanderbilt-Ingram, the Preston Laboratories include the work of some 20 senior scientists working on the most innovative frontiers of cancer research.
A sampling of recent discoveries:
*Discovery of a small protein that specifically recognizes and binds to tumors responding to chemotherapy and a technique to “tag” this protein with a light-emitting molecule so that doctors can “see” tumor response to treatment. This work may offer a new strategy to determine whether a treatment is working within days of starting it, instead of weeks.
*A clue to why cancer patients from the southeastern United States who are treated with the drug known commercially as Erbitux are far more likely to suffer a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction than patients in other regions of the country. A Vanderbilt-Ingram team found that many of those patients already have a pre-existing antibody that reacts with the drug. Based on this research, a commercial assay is being developed to allow physicians to test patients for the troubling antibody before deciding to use the drug.
*Insight into one of oncology’s most frustrating challenges – the failure of treatments to completely wipe out advanced cancers, leaving patients vulnerable to future recurrence and progression. A Vanderbilt-Ing4ram team found evidence that a treatment-induced increase in a growth factor called TGF-beta serves as a survival signal for cancer cells, allowing them to withstand therapy and later grow and spread. This work suggests that inhibitors of this growth factor might be used in combination with chemotherapy or radiation to improve the tumor-killing effect of therapy. |