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Cancer League of
Colorado, Inc. was founded by five women whose families were affected
by cancer. These women personally experienced the
heartache that comes with the disease. From their individual
struggles grew a joint commitment to raise money for research and
patient care. Their dream in founding Cancer League is to
help find a cure for cancer.
From the beginning, Cancer League has been committed to supporting cancer research and has
raised and dispensed approximately $4,000,000. to support Colorado
research, patient care and family programs. Cancer
League grants have been made to projects across Colorado and have
helped thousands of individuals and families fight cancer.
 Cancer League of Colorado, Inc is a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization composed entirely of volunteers.
Unique to non-profits, Cancer League has no paid staff and no
offices. All operating expenses are covered by membership dues. Cancer League now has more than 375 volunteer members
who share the commitment to fight cancer.
Cancer League of Colorado has a compassionate
approach to raising dollars for cancer research and patient services
within the State of Colorado. We are a 501 (c) 3, founded in 1969,
with the mission of finding a cure for, or the means to control,
cancer. We are unique in that our
organization has no paid staff and no offices. Membership dues pay for
all operating expenses.
The Cancer League's philosophy states that, "We are
a cohesive, caring group with close relations among our members to
work toward our goal of fundraising to find a cure for cancer."
Our compassion is in our caring members, dollars
raised, and volunteers' time. We reach out with our advisory boards
and the time and effort they put in to directing our grant programs.
We are companions together as a group of more than 375 members who
give personally of their time to make our mission a reality.
Our Grants and resulting research:
Based on recommendations
from our Scientific Advisory Board, each year the Funds Allocation
Committee distributes monies for research and service grants.
The Scientific Advisory Board is a group of Colorado medical doctors
and research specialists who volunteer their time to insure the funds
are sent to worthy organizations throughout the state of Colorado.
Research for such grants is conducted at several facilities, which
include the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Colorado
State University, Children’s Hospital and the National Jewish Center
for Immunology and Respiratory Care.
Generally 90% of Cancer League’s funds are awarded for research
grants; the remaining 10% are awarded to service grants.
Service grants are awarded to organizations for such
things as hospice care, educational materials, care to indigent
patients and recreational activities for children fighting cancer.
Past recipients include Boulder Hospice,
Doctors Care, AMC Native American Cancer Research Program, Qualife
Wellness, and the Visiting Nurses Association. All
organizations benefit patients only in the state of Colorado.
Cancer League of
Colorado, Inc. was a founding institution for the Cancer Center at the
University of Colorado Health Science Center, the only comprehensive
cancer center in the Rocky Mountain Region. The League was
also instrumental in funding the Colorado Ronald McDonald House and
Qualife, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of life
for cancer patients.
Cancer League funded
research has been successful in leading to groundbreaking discoveries,
particularly in the field of genetic research. Our funding played a
major role in the following discoveries:
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Establishment of a link between DDT and
testicular, prostate and breast cancer.
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Discovery of a protein that controls
silencing DNA cell processes, which, if mutate, can lead to cancer.
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Identification of cancer-specific gene
expression markers.
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Discovery of a region of cell cycle
protein, which is essential for its function in regulating normal
cell division.
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Discovery of the gene targets involved in
acute leukemia in humans.
Each CLC Dollar Donated to Research
Generates $20 In Additional Funding
more info
During
the past 30 years Cancer League of Colorado, Inc. (CLC) has raised
over $4 million to be used for early-stage cancer research. These
funds have been disbursed to Colorado-based research organizations,
typically in amounts of $15,000 to $30,000. In many cases this seed
funding has resulted in significant follow-on research funded by the
federal government pharmaceutical companies and other organizations.
CLC recently did a statistical analysis of a number of grants made
during the past several years and determined that for every dollar
it provided as early-stage research grants in Colorado, another $20 was raised through subsequent funding by larger organizations
to continue the more promising investigations. This covered basic
research as well as translational research that can be readily
applied to clinical applications. It included pursuits into bold new
directions as well as the expansion of previously successful
treatments. Even without additional funding, CLC financial support
resulted in numerous helpful publications in peer reviewed journals.
Without the aid of CLC, many of these researchers would have
struggled greatly to have obtained backing elsewhere, But don't
simply take our word for it. Following are what our research grant
recipients have to say about the efficacy of CLC funding in the
marathon struggle to find a cure for cancer.
"CLC provides bridge funding for young
investigators early in their careers, allowing them to continue
their research while they work on obtaining more long-term support,"
notes Timothy
Garrington M.D.
"CLC works like a
seed. From the seed, we grow up huge trees,"
observed researcher Zhang Gongyi.
"The CLC funding was crucial for my stay in
that research area because my salary was provided from this grant.
The work I initiated during that period provided fertile ground for
my research,"
explained CLC grant
recipient Naushad Ali, Ph.D.
"The preliminary
results generated during that period led the foundation stone for my
current research programs, and as a result I was able to publish a
few research papers. The preliminary investigation during this
period helped in getting grants from the American Liver Foundation
($90,000 over 3 years)."
“Your
contribution helps researchers to continue their interest in cancer
biology. The information generated by each research project funded
by CLC is like thick dots that make a bold line. You are not only
part of those dots
but also connecting links,"
Ali
concluded.
"Thanks to the first CLC grant, we were able
to create a new line of transgenic mice that will be of general use
to researchers in the areas of B cell development and malignancies,"
James Hagman Ph.D.
emphasized.
M.D. Gail
Eckhardt's CLC funded research
"has helped guide what types of biological
tests are most useful in these clinical trials."
The
results "are being used to develop novel treatments for cancer and
to determine if they are effective
in hitting the cancer target. This really helps fund
cutting edge clinical and translational research,
" she concluded.
"Three publications
have resulted from this work, and a fourth publication has been
submitted,"
summarized Lela Lee M.D. ”In
my estimation, this is a high publication-to-funding ratio."
It's "good to have the money stay local.
Colorado universities have become national factors in cancer
research,"
said appreciative researcher Carol Sartorius.
One of the most
interesting stories we have comes from cancer researcher and former
cancer patient Anne Brauweiler, Ph.D. "I felt very lucky since
someone in my situation 20 years sooner would not have survived at
all. In addition there are many people for which chemotherapy and
radiation are not effective. I kept imagining that there must be
some way of drastically improving on the current methods of
treatment available. Since I was nearing completion of graduate
school, I decided that my goal would be to develop better, more
specific therapies that would allow the selective targeting and
destruction of tumor cells," she told us.
I considered
that one potentially successful strategy might be to rely on the
tremendous powers of the immune system. The immune system can
protect against disease by attacking and destroying bacterial and
viral invaders. Before I entered the laboratory, no-one was studying
cancer or tumor immunity.
"The previous two
years of funding from Cancer League has enabled me to test a model in which
tumor cells could be destroyed or eliminated, not
by chemotherapy, but instead by the immune system.
Based on these studies, we found that the immune system cells, known
as macrophages, indeed could eliminate tumor cells if they were
given some 'help' in the form of tumor specific antibody and a
cytokine known as interferon gamma.
"Intriguingly,
recent clinical studies have demonstrated the first successful use
of antibodies to directly treat human cancer. These antibodies,
developed by the biotech company, Genentech, were effective in
curing over half of the patients with untreatable lymphoma.
I believe that one day, there will be
specific antibodies that recognize and selectively destroy all human
cancer cells,"
she concluded.
Dr. Thomas Langan
cited a critical difference in CLC funding from others.
"Support of basic research is extremely important, and is the
only thing that will eventually provide the solid
foundation of
knowledge needed to control cancer. This is especially true these days
where pressure (applied by earmarking research funds to be used
solely for the purpose) to carry out "translational research,"
research that is supposed to have the potential to be 'translated'
directly into patient care, is extremely high. The fraction of such
projects that successfully translate into beneficial treatment has
been extremely low."
This answer
sounds somewhat melodramatic, but I would probably not be in an
academic setting today without the support of CLC.
"The first grant was instrumental in
permitting us to continue our work, and without it, I almost
certainly would be in another position today, most likely in
industry,"
stated Jerome Schaack.
"The support of CLC
provided us the security to perform several costly, yet risky,
experiments that we might not otherwise have attempted,"
observed William Schiemann.
"Without the research
grant from Cancer League Colorado, we would not be able to pursue
the research that we had proposed," Dai Zonghan Ph.D. concluded. "We might
have (had) to spend (a) significant amount of time to look for
funding opportunity
elsewhere. With the support
from Cancer League Colorado, we were able to identify molecular
events that are critical for
pathogenesis of CML and ALL.”
“The spread of
a primary tumor to secondary sites complicates treatment and makes
complete eradication of the cancer considerably more difficult,"
noted Bruce Cuevas, Ph.D. "Indeed,
... cancer therapies that successfully prevent the cancer from
spreading to other sites would greatly simplify treatment and would
be expected to significantly improve the survival rate of patients
suffering from a number of cancer types."
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