First, let me apologize for no update last week – “back-to-school” is kicking me in the behind
Second, WOW!!!! I received a report on Sunday the 20th and then again this morning and the increase in walkers and money is incredible! YAHOO! We are up to $12,000, 234 walkers and 23 team captains! And the season has really just begun!!!!
Lastly, let’s cheer on this week’s walkers!
9/19/09: Jennifer Perryman (Wichita) – sorry I missed you last week! Hope it was great!
9/26/09: Karen DeVinney (Orlando), Beck Marko (Sparks, NV), Eric O’Neil (Santa Rosa, CA), Kristin Marren (Pearl, MS), Megan Merritt (Seattle, WA) and Renee Rubio (Tuscon, AZ)
Go Team Friends of Heroes and Affiliates!!!!!! Hope you all have terific walks! Please send pictures my way if you have any! I’d love to update the website!
The Light the Night season is fast approaching and it is the perfect time to remember WHY we are walking. Please join us by adding a comment to this post about why you are walking for Friends of Heroes, how you found us and what you would like to see in the coming years. Let get this party started!!!!
Through out the years our team has had the chance to meet and support many children who have been battling a war against cancer. This war takes place in their tiny bodies. The word cancer is enough to scare anyone, and to say it to a child must be devastating, yet these children take it with their heads held high. These children are true heroes. They each deserve the honor of being named a hero.
This year, Friends of Heroes wants to honor these warriors who have battled more in their lives then most adults will ever endure. To nominate a child to be one of Friends of Heroes, Hero of the month, please send in their Name, Age, Parent/guardian’s e-mail, a quick story on this child and how they have touched your life to teamleaders@friendsofheroes.org
Please note that we can only accept nomiations that have the consent from the child’s parent or guardian.
The LLS Therapy Acceleration Program’sAcademic ConciergeDivision continues to successfully leverage LLS research investments by helping select LLS-funded academic investigators move new therapies toward market approval. On April 22, 2009, LLS will present one of its Academic Concierge projects, headed by Principal Investigator Aaron D. Schimmer, F.R.C.P.C., M.D., Ph.D., Ontario Cancer Institute (shown here), at a meeting with Health Canada (the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) and discuss next steps toward opening a Phase I clinical trial. Barring any concerns from Health Canada, the program is on track to open LLS’s first AC Division clinical trial in the fall of 2009.
In conjunction with the LLS National Board of Directors meeting held March 13th in Newark, N.J., the Therapy Acceleration Program Governance Committee reviewed the progress of the Cleveland Clinic partnership in the Clinical Trials Program Division and approved a third LLS-supported trial to open at the Clinical Trial Center for Hematologic Malignancies. This Phase I/II trial will combine two approved therapies, Lenalidomide and Rituximab, for maintenance therapy following high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation in patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Also exciting is news that the Cleveland Clinic will utilize three of its community treatment centers when it becomes a trial site for LLS’s partner, Aegera Therapeutics, and the ongoing Phase I/II trial of a new drug (AEG35156). The Cleveland Clinic’s main campus and three regional hospital centers will begin recruiting patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), small lymphocytic lymphoma or follicular lymphoma for treatment with Aegera’s AEG35156, that inhibits a molecule called X-Linked Inhibitor of Apoptosis (XIAP). This is a significant step toward LLS’s goal of enhancing access to clinical trials by “taking the trial to the patient.”
In order to leverage its successful clinical trial partnership with the Cleveland Clinic and to further address issues that currently limit clinical trial participation, LLS hosted a 1 1/2 day workshop this past February in San Francisco. Ron Levy, M.D., professor and chief, Division of Oncology at Stanford University, led discussions in which clinical trials experts reviewed ongoing models for early phase blood cancer treatment trials, including roles for-profit companies and government agencies can play, and considered how LLS can best use its resources to help increase participation in practice-changing trials. Workshop discussions provided many insights that will enable future partnerships for the LLS Clinical Trials Program.
Friends of Heroes is a national Light the Night Friends and Family team. We are comprised of moms, dads, families and friends compelled to help find a cure for blood cancers.
Friends of Heroes is the largest team of this type in North America and we have raised over $1 million for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in the last 5 years through Light The Night Walks.
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The LLS 
Friends of Heroes is a national Light the Night Friends and Family team. We are comprised of moms, dads, families and friends compelled to help find a cure for blood cancers.
