ASHEVILLE, N.C., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Research into the deadliest type of childhood cancer has received a large boost from the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation (PBTF), which has awarded research grants totaling $2.25 million for 2005. Pre-Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute grants went to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), and the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada. Basic research grants also were awarded to Baylor University College of Medicine and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 2005.
The UCSF, CHLA and SickKids pre-PBTF Institute grants join the foundation’s ongoing financial commitment to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute at Duke University, directed by Darell Bigner, M.D., Ph.D. The PBTF-Duke Institute is devoted exclusively to pediatric brain tumor research. With these new grants the researchers at UCSF, CHLA, SickKids and Duke will collaborate to generate scientific knowledge of pediatric brain tumors that will bring about innovative and less invasive clinical treatments.
To determine the 2005 awards the PBTF invited institutions to apply for the pre-Institute grants based on certain prerequisites, including a commitment to significantly advance pediatric brain tumor research within their institutions. The pre-Institute grant winners were chosen by a scientific peer review committee. Over the next three years, they are expected to make substantial research progress. In year three, if appropriate progress has been made, they will be invited to reapply for an additional two years of increased funding. The basic grants to Baylor and St. Jude were also awarded through peer review.
“When we established the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute at Duke with a six-year, $6 million dollar grant in 2003, it was with an eye toward expanding to other institutions in the future,” said Dianne Traynor, PBTF’s director of research and advocacy. “The collaboration of these institutions will help to fast-forward our understanding of pediatric brain tumors.”
The principal investigator at UCSF is Mitchel S. Berger, M.D., chair of neurological surgery at UCSF Medical Center and director of its Brain Tumor Research Center. At CHLA, the lead researcher is Robert C. Seeger, M.D., director of the Cancer Program at the hospital’s Saban Research Institute. And at SickKids, the research team is headed by James Rutka, M.D., Ph.D., FRCSC, co-director of the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre.
About the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation
The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation serves the childhood brain tumor population in several ways. The PBTF has a long history of funding innovative research initiatives on behalf of children with brain tumors. In 1991, it provided a founding grant for the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS), the largest brain tumor database in the country and continues to support it today. One of its grants also founded the Society of Neuro- Oncology’s international medical journal Neuro-Oncology. To encourage the development of the field, the PBTF also funds national and international brain tumor conferences.
The PBTF also has a family support program that includes a full-time social worker, a toll-free help line, patient education and resource materials, the Informed Parent and Survivor Internet Conference series, a college scholarship program for brain tumor survivors, two quarterly newsletters, and an informative website. For more information about the PBTF or its programs, please call (828) 665-6891 or go to www.pbtfus.org.
Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation
CONTACT: Mary O. Ratcliffe, Communications-PR Manager, +1-828-665-6891, ormratcliffe@pbtfus.org
Web site: http://www.pbtfus.org//
