The 2020 Give to Cure Cancer Year-End Appeal is now underway. It’s your last chance to make this year’s campaign the most successful ever.
We are proud to report…
The year of 2020 turns out to be an unprecedented time of new challenge. Thanks to the stewardship of wonderful and loyal donors like you, we are able to continue to support the work by our scientists and even expand our programs during the global pandemic.
With support from loyal donors like you, excellent progress has been made in these AFCR-funded projects in the fight against cancer. Together, these projects could significantly improve treatment and diagnosis of various cancer types.
•Targeting Epigenetics in Cancer SALL4 and DNMT1 are epigenetic factors (changes in DNA without mutations) that cause the most common type of liver cancer. AFCR scientists are optimizing candidate aptamers – short strands of DNA and RNA molecules – that most effectively inhibit SALL4 and DNMT1 and halt liver cancer growth. Targeting epigenetic complexes using aptamers could prolong and improve the life quality of liver cancer patients, as aptamers are non-toxic to normal cells and provide a specific effect only to the cancer cells. Moreover, aptamer therapeutics could be equally effective in almost all types of solid tumors and many leukemias.
•Collaboration Program to Develop New Targeted Therapy for Major Cancer Pathway For a central growth pathway hyperactivated in over 40% of cancers, resistance occurs to current drugs leaving patients without hope. AFCR’s expert biologists discovered how resistance occurs and designed candidate drugs that do not induce resistance. To optimize the lead drugs, AFCR is supporting a renowned chemist from University of Pennsylvania, USA. This AFCR collaboration brings synergistic expertise to develop a potential treatment that could affect the lives of numerous cancer patients.
•GBM AGILE- Brain Cancer Revolutionary Global Clinical Trial Glioblastoma (GBM) brain cancer patients have five-year survival rates of only 5%. In 2013, AFCR supported conception of GBM AGILE trial with its multiple treatment arms, allowing identification of promising drugs and their seamless transition to a confirmatory stage for fast approval. This year, a third treatment arm was announced. Twenty-five sites in US are open with sites opening in Canada and Europe. Principal investigators at ten major Chinese hospitals are in partnership discussions for trial sites and GBM AGILE team projects activation of the first site in early 2021.
•First-in-class, Botanical Drug in Clinical Trials Since 2013, AFCR supported research of YIV-906, a botanical drug that potentiates anti-tumor activity for immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Moreover, the drug protects gastrointestinal tissue from therapy’s harsh effects. YIV-906, paired with frontline drug, sorafenib, is treating patients with Hepatitis B virus-associated liver cancer. Sorafenib by itself, has modest response rates and serious toxicities that causes many patients to discontinue. Trials are open in the US and Taiwan and sites will open soon in China and Hong Kong. Since YIV-906 affects multiple biological systems, its success will usher in a new era of treatment – a convergence of Western and Eastern medicines.
•A Novel Approach to the Clinical Care for Liver Cancer Effective treatments are still lacking for hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC, the most common type of liver cancer and sixth most common cancer worldwide. Most patients do not survive beyond a year with current therapeutic options (surgery, liver transplantation, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy). Epigenetic factors are a key component in the development of cancer including HCC. Deregulation of these factors derails the normal function of a cell by blocking it from differentiation, reshuffles its normal physiological metabolism pathway, and ultimately, causes it to grow beyond limitations.
Thanks to you…
Support from you fuels AFCR’s leading-edge cancer research. With your support we are able to provide the most important dollars in the fight against cancer.
You can make a difference. Support our 2020 Give To Cure Cancer Year-End Appeal with a contribution and do it today. The gift you give matters most. Chances are that research discoveries being made by AFCR scientists will benefit you or someone you love in the near future. Thank you for your renewed support.
