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Dear Friend,
If you’d like to know just how much impact the Meso Foundation’s research funding makes, I think you’ll find my story very interesting.
Why would a cancer researcher bother with mesothelioma? Compared to other cancers, it receives almost no funding, it is not popular, and treatment break-throughs have been slow. But it has powerfully drawn me. Our whole society used asbestos, but has ignored the tragedy of those who get sick as a result. These patients – people who built our country and defended it, dedicated workers, family members, even those who cannot identify their exposure – inspire me. And I have found that mesothelioma researchers are very special. It is not the money which motivates them (indeed there is very little), but a deep passion for this particular disease. In 1999, I served as President of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group. I saw first-hand the brilliance and dedication of the community of researchers around the world working hard to find treatments for this cruel cancer but stymied by the lack of funding.
In 2003, my colleagues and I began to develop monoclonal antibodies as a new, potentially very powerful way to treat meso. We got as far as we could with our in-house funding, and gained promising preliminary data. But because this work applied primarily to a “rare” cancer, we could not find outside funding. We were stuck.
This changed when the Meso Foundation awarded us funding to pursue our work. From the approximately one billion antibodies present in humans, we discovered 13 that uniquely target meso. We can attach a small-molecule toxic drug to these antibodies and, in cell cultures, they will enter and kill meso cancer cells, but not affect normal cells at all. This opens a whole new avenue of potential treatment that needs to be validated in animals and then in clinical trials. I was only able to develop it thanks to the generosity of donors who enable the Meso Foundation to fund top quality, promising research.
But that’s not all. I began presenting my results at the Foundation’s annual Symposium, and saw all the Foundation was doing to support patients, caregivers and those who have lost someone to the disease. I learned about the Foundation’s website, educational materials, on-line community, financial assistance for medical travel, and its Medical Liaison – Nurse Practitioner Mary Hesdorffer – who is available full-time to help patients find treatment and deal with the disease.
I also was inspired to participate in the Foundation’s Advocacy Day. For the past three years I have joined with hundreds of patients and family members, fellow researchers, clinicians, and union representatives, meeting face-to-face with our federal legislators in Washington, D.C. We urge them to meet their life-saving responsibility to fund mesothelioma research and ban further use of asbestos.
This personal advocacy empowers those who participate. And it is effective. In 2007, as a direct result of the Foundation’s advocacy, Congress for the first time ever specifically provided mesothelioma research funding. And here is where my story comes full circle. I applied and last year was awarded 1.4 million dollars in new federal grant funds to continue my research to develop more effective treatments for mesothelioma!
So, how does the Foundation multiply the dollars donors give it to advance mesothelioma research? I can tell you that the Foundation’s research funding enabled my lab to discover a potential new treatment approach that is deadly to meso cells and harmless to healthy cells. Further, it attracted bright young Ph.D.'s in my lab – who otherwise would have gone into other cancers – to invest their careers in meso. In fact, the Meso Foundation funding allowed me to keep pursuing mesothelioma, which led – along with the Foundation's powerfully effective advocacy – to $1.4 million in new federal grant funds being awarded to me to take my meso research even farther.
I know first-hand the value of the Foundation’s research grant program, the compassion and effectiveness of its patient and family support, and the power of its advocacy. So I ask you to join me in supporting the Foundation this year-end with a gift as generous as you can make.
Right now, the Foundation is reviewing 56 applications for its 2009 round of grant funding. These are from brilliant researchers around the world who are dedicated to meso but have little to no support other than the Foundation. I am on the scientific review panel and I know how exciting many of the projects are. Some of them aim to open new approaches to treatment. Others build on existing research to bring it into the clinic and benefit patients now. Your gift will help the Meso Foundation fund as many of the best projects as possible. Your gift will help the Meso Foundation drive the whole field of meso research forward. In the end, your gift will help save lives and reduce suffering.
For myself personally, for the Meso Foundation, for the patients and families struggling against this disease, and for everyone who cares about eradicating it, I thank you for your generosity.
Believe in a cure,
V. Courtney Broaddus, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Associate Director, Lung Biology Center
Hellen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of California at San Francisco
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