Tee Up For Tots Appeal 2011-2012

Tee Up For Tots thirteenth year of fund raising puts us over the $1,000,000 mark and at the same time brings all of us new challenges. Research dollars are needed now on a time sensitive project. Tee Up For Tots has been supporting this research at the Steele Children's Research Center (SCRC) in the laboratory of Professor of Pediatrics and Section Head of Hematology/Oncology , Dr Manny Katsanis for the last decade.

Simply put, Dr Katsanis developed a cancer vaccine, CRCL (Chaperone Rich Cell Lysate), which takes a patient's own tumor and isolates the components of that tumor which are most likely to initiate a strong immune response. Tee Up For Tots Doctoral Fellow Collin LaCasse, 2008-2010 continues his work eliminating this obstacle that prohibits the vaccine from functioning properly which is cancer-induced immunosuppressant.

On a second front, our current Doctoral Fellow Alexis Lorenz's, research project is centered around the use of immunotherapy in pediatric bone marrow transplant (BMT) recipients, who have a high probability of relapsing. Using the same vaccine, in conjunction with activated immune cells (emTh-1) she is hoping to establish an anti-cancer effect that will help the body attack any remaining cancer cells post BMT and achieve complete remission.

The basic description of the research above needs to be submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within one year in hopes of expediting its approval for clinical trials. We want these trials to take place "at home" here at the Steele Children's Research Center, and the University of Arizona Medical Center under the direction of Dr Manny Katsanis, the inventor.

Recently, Dr Katsanis and myself were invited for an interview on a local TV talk show and a week or so prior to the show Dr Katsanis told me he wasn't going to make it that he had too many sick children on the floor. Personally, I do not remember a trip to the Steele Children's Research Center or Diamond Children's Medical Center where this wasn't the case. Yet the national statistics say there are only 10,000 pediatric cancer cases diagnosed each year. This number has not changed since I started to check it fourteen years ago, so personally I'm a little suspect.

Folks, we need your help! Do you realize a child dies of cancer every four hours? Do you realize pediatric cancers are the highest pediatric mortality causing factor due to disease?

Please go to our web site click on the donate button or put a check for whatever you can spare in the return envelop along with the donation form in this newsletter. Join in with Tee Up For Tots, together we can make a difference working towards a cancer free world for all our children.

Please help us help the children!

A heartfelt thank you,

Sincerely,
Jerry L. Zillman