A telethon is a televised fundraising event that lasts many hours or even days, the purpose of which is to raise money for a charitable, political or other purportedly worthy cause.
Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting people living with muscular dystrophy, ALS, and related neuromuscular diseases. Founded in 1950 by Paul Cohen, who lived with muscular dystrophy, MDA accelerates research, advances care, and works to empower families to live longer and more independent lives. Renowned for The MDA Labor Day Telethon, the annual telecast aired live from 1966 to 2010 and was hosted by Jerry Lewis, who also served as MDA's national chairman.
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a cancer research and treatment center located in Buffalo, New York. Founded by surgeon Roswell Park in 1898, the center was the first in the United States to specifically focus on cancer research. The center is usually called Roswell Park in short. The center, which conducts clinical research on cancer as well as the development new drugs, provides advanced treatment for all forms of adult and pediatric cancer, and serves as a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is as of 2019, the only upstate New York facility to hold the National Cancer Institute designation of "comprehensive cancer center".
Adjuvant therapy, also known as adjunct therapy, adjuvant care, or augmentation therapy, is a therapy that is given in addition to the primary or initial therapy to maximize its effectiveness. The surgeries and complex treatment regimens used in cancer therapy have led the term to be used mainly to describe adjuvant cancer treatments. An example of such adjuvant therapy is the additional treatment usually given after surgery where all detectable disease has been removed, but where there remains a statistical risk of relapse due to the presence of undetected disease. If known disease is left behind following surgery, then further treatment is not technically adjuvant.
KRAS is a gene that provides instructions for making a protein called K-Ras, a part of the RAS/MAPK pathway. The protein relays signals from outside the cell to the cell's nucleus. These signals instruct the cell to grow and divide (proliferate) or to mature and take on specialized functions (differentiate). It is called KRAS because it was first identified as a viral oncogene in the KirstenRAt Sarcoma virus. The oncogene identified was derived from a cellular genome, so KRAS, when found in a cellular genome, is called a proto-oncogene.
The Channel Seven Perth Telethon, regionally known simply as Telethon, is an annual telethon established in 1968 by philanthropist Sir James Cruthers and Brian Treasure, and produced by TVW, a Seven Network-owned television station in Perth, Western Australia. It raises money for over 50 beneficiaries each year including the Perth Children's Hospital, the Telethon Clinical Research Centre and the Telethon Kids Institute. Channel Seven's Perth Telethon is the highest donating telethon per capita in the world, and since the first Telethon in 1968 has raised over A$600 million in total.
Tumor-associated glycoprotein 72 (TAG-72) is a glycoprotein found on the surface of many cancer cells, including ovary, breast, colon, lung, and pancreatic cancers. It is a mucin-like molecule with a molar mass of over 1000 kDa.
The International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) is a voluntary scientific organization that provides a forum for collaboration among the world's leading cancer and genomic researchers. The ICGC was launched in 2008 to coordinate large-scale cancer genome studies in tumours from 50 cancer types and/or subtypes that are of main importance across the globe.
The Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), based in Los Angeles, United States, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization of the entertainment industry. EIF funds more than 300 charitable organizations annually, both in the Los Angeles area and throughout the entire United States. To date, EIF has pledged more than $1 billion for its philanthropic initiatives.
The Noreen Fraser Foundation (NFF) was a national, non-profit, philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles. Its mission was to raise funds for breakthrough research that advances precision medicine for the prevention and treatment of women's cancers. Their hope was that the cancer will become a manageable disease that patients will live with and not die from, until it ceases to exist.
Pelareorep is a proprietary isolate of the unmodified human reovirus being developed as a systemically administered immuno-oncological viral agent for the treatment of solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Pelareorep is an oncolytic virus, which means that it preferentially lyses cancer cells. Pelareorep also promotes an inflamed tumor phenotype through innate and adaptive immune responses. Preliminary clinical trials indicate that it may have anti-cancer effects across a variety of cancer types when administered alone and in combination with other cancer therapies.
Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA) is a not-for-profit organization focused on ovarian cancer research, advocacy and patient support. The organization was formed in January 2016 when the former not-for-profit organization Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, which focused primarily on ovarian cancer research, combined with Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, which focused primarily on ovarian cancer advocacy and support programs, to form one organization.
Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) is the UK version of Stand Up to Cancer, a US charitable television telethon, broadcast between 2012 and 2018 on the Channel 4 network in the United Kingdom, and again from 2020. The most recent edition of the telethon was on 15 October 2021, a programme which was hosted by Davina McCall, Alan Carr, Maya Jama and Adam Hills. By February 2015, the 2014 broadcast had raised £15,585,444 in pledges, in aid of cancer research.
Carlos L. Arteaga is the Associate Director for Clinical Research, director of the Center for Cancer Targeted Therapies, and professor of Cancer Biology and Medicine at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. In 2014–2015, he was the president of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Stephen Bruce Baylin is the deputy director and associate director for research at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research and medicine and chief of cancer biology of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focus is epigenetics in the development of cancer, and he was one of the first researchers in this field in the 1980s.
Gordon B. Mills is the Wayne and Julie Drinkward Endowed Chair in Precision Oncology, Director of Precision Oncology, Director of SMMART Trials and Professor in Cell, Development and Cancer Biology in the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University.
Elizabeth M. Jaffee is an American oncologist specializing in pancreatic cancer and immunotherapy.
Nita Ahuja is a surgeon and the Chair of the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine and Surgeon-in-Chief of Surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital. She is the first woman ever to serve as Chair of Surgery in Yale in its >200 year history. Before taking this position she was the first woman ever to be the Chief of Surgical Oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, USA. Ahuja researches in the field of epigenetics and is a passionate advocate of clinician scientist. She also served as the director of Sarcoma and peritoneal surface malignancy program. She is a surgeon-scientist and her research has been cited more than 11,000 times in scientific literature.
Luis Alberto Diaz, Jr. is the Head of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology in Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Department of Medicine.
Edith Peterson Mitchell is a retired Brigadier general of the United States Air Force and an oncologist. She is clinical professor of medicine and medical oncology at Thomas Jefferson University. In 2015, she became the president of the National Medical Association.
