Happy Monday everyone! Today we start our sixth week of
training, meaning we are 1/3 of the way through our program. It is hard to
believe how quickly the weeks are flying by and that three months from today I
will be joining my amazing DFMC teammates in running the 119th Boston Marathon.
Many people ask me why I am running for Dana-Farber and
their Barr
research program, and the answer is simple. I am running for every
single person who has ever been or will be touched by cancer's greedy grip, and
for their families and loved ones. Because it seems like every single day I am
hearing about someone who has been diagnosed with or is fighting this awful
disease, and far too often learning about brave angels who have lost that
battle - including three very special souls this week alone. And it makes you
so mad and leaves you feeling so helpless. Why does this happen to good people?
Why does this happen to young people whose lives are just beginning? And
why can't we stop it?
I do not have the answer to those questions, but I can tell
you that each day we are getting closer to those breakthroughs that will help
us reach the ultimate finish line of a world without cancer. That is why we run
and that is why we will keep on running until we get there. And despite the
immense sadness of this past week, my hope is restored when I read about the
tremendous work being done by the Barr program investigators such as Dr. Marc
Mansour, PhD.
"The reality is that the Barr Program has made major
impact. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to do this work."- Dr. Marc Mansour
Due to significant progress, chemotherapy now cures
approximately 80 percent of pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia
(T-ALL) patients and half of adults. However, patients with a subtype known as
early T-cell progenitor (ETP) do not typically respond to current
therapies. Marc Mansour, MD, PhD is leveraging Barr support to
uncover new potential drivers of T-ALL in the hope of developing much-needed
treatments for these patients. After discovering that a gene called JDP2 is
highly expressed in this disease, Dr. Mansour and his team developed zebrafish
research models that expressed this gene. This monumental innovation
represented the second successful model of T-cell leukemia to come from Dr.
Look’s laboratory, with the first zebrafish T-ALL line established more than a
decade ago. Dr. Mansour is examining how JDP2 drives ETP T-ALL. He then aims to
use their zebrafish model to screen various drugs and learn which prevent T-ALL
formation, which could lead to the development of new therapies for this disease,
as well as related cancers.
Thank you to Dr. Mansour and the countless others whose hard work and investigations illustrate the true impact this challenge is having on cancer research and treatment.
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