CLEVELAND – October 16, 2015 – The Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund, created by the V Foundation in January 2015 to honor the memory of Stuart Scott, ESPN news anchor, has awarded Sanford Markowitz, MD, PhD, and his team at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, a three-year, $600,000 grant to support research into the causes of increased cancer lethality in minority populations.
“We deeply appreciate the support of the V Foundation and the special obligation that comes with this grant honoring Stuart Scott’s name and memory,” said Dr. Markowitz, Professor, Medicine-Hematology/Oncology, Case Western Reserve University, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and UH Case Medical Center’s Seidman Cancer Center. “This grant will move research forward to understand why colon cancers are more lethal when they develop in African Americans. Our aim is for the knowledge gained to hopefully benefit African Americans who develop colon cancer and to potentially help us to develop new methods to improve colon cancer outcomes in the African American community.”
The V Foundation for Cancer Research and family members representing Stuart Scott launched the new fund in January 2015 following his fight against cancer. Scott, who passed away in 2014, was a champion for cancer research and participated in a clinical trial. He was a passionate voice for improving outcomes for African Americans and other minorities with cancer.
Dr. Markowitz and his team are one of only three national recipients of the new fund, which aims to catalyze cutting-edge research designed to answer questions such as, why are some cancers are more aggressive and more fatal in African Americans?
“The Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund supports cancer research in the most vulnerable and disproportionately impacted communities battling cancer,” says Carole Wegner, PhD, Vice President, Research and Grants Administration, the V Foundation. “Stuart was a passionate voice for improving outcomes for African Americans and other minorities with cancer.”
The award to the Case team will help the to expand and continue their ground breaking studies of genetic differences between colon cancers in that develop in African Americans as compared with Caucasians. Along with Dr. Markowitz, the V Foundation award team includes: Kishore Guda, DVM, PhD, Joseph Willis, MD, Zhenghe Wang, PhD, Jill Barnholtz-Sloan, PhD, Thomas LaFramboise, PhD, Martina Veigl, PhD, Alex Miron PhD, and James K.V. Willson, MD, Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
In January 2015, Dr. Markowitz and his team at Case Western Reserve University and UH Case Medical Center identified new gene mutations unique to colon cancers in African Americans – the population with the highest incidence and death rates of any group for this disease. These findings, published in the Jan. 12, 2015 edition of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) were jointly led by first author Dr. Guda, co-senior author, Dr. Willis, and by Dr. Markowitz, and included collaborating authors Drs. Veigl, Miron, and Wilson along with Vinay Varadan, PhD, W. David Sedwick, PhD, Zhenghe John Wang, PhD, Neil Molyneaux, and Robert C. Elston, ScD, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center; Arman Nosrati, Lakshmeswari Ravi, James Lutterbaugh and Lydia Beard, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; and Mark D. Adams, PhD, J. Craig Venter Institute.
Drs. Guda and Varadan published findings involving genetic characteristics of African Americans with colon cancer in July 2015 in Genome Medicine. Additional contributing authors included Drs. Barnholtz-Sloan, Markowitz, and Willis, along with Salendra Singh, Arman Nosrati, Lakshmeswari Ravi, and James Lutterbaugh.
There are many examples of cancer disparities among minority populations in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent data, black men have the highest cancer incidence rates, and black men and women both have a higher cancer death rate than their white counterparts. Cancer is the leading cause of death among Hispanics, accounting for 21 percent of deaths overall and 15 percent of deaths in children.
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About Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
Case Comprehensive Cancer Center is an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center located at Case Western Reserve University. The center, which has been continuously funded since 1987, integrates the cancer research activities of the largest biomedical research and health care institutions in Ohio – Case Western Reserve, University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic. NCI-designated cancer centers are characterized by scientific excellence and the capability to integrate a diversity of research approaches to focus on the problem of cancer. It is led by Stanton Gerson, MD, Asa and Patricia Shiverick- Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology, director of the National Center for Regenerative Medicine, Case Western Reserve, and director of the Seidman Cancer Center at UH Case Medical Center.
About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation’s top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School’s innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the School of Medicine.
Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report’s “Guide to Graduate Education.”
The School of Medicine’s primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu
About University Hospitals
University Hospitals, the second largest employer in Northeast Ohio with 25,000 employees, serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of 15 hospitals, 29 outpatient health centers and primary care physician offices in 15 counties. At the core of our $3.5 billion health system is University Hospitals Case Medical Center, ranked among America’s 50 best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report in all 12 methodology-ranked specialties. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, UH Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation, including cancer, pediatrics, women’s health, orthopaedics, radiology, neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, digestive health, transplantation and genetics. Its main campus includes UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women’s Hospital, Ohio’s only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org
CONTACT:
Christine Somosi
216-368-6287
Christine. Somosi@case.edu
CONTACT:
Alicia Reale
216-844-5158
Alicia.reale@UHhospitals.org
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