Category Archives: Accomplishments

Fun Fundraising

In a recent article in the New York Times, Arthur Brooks discusses why giving back can lead to happiness and the power that comes from “investing one’s own time, talent and treasure.”

bakesale2014ACGT has been the recipient of many of these acts of giving and we are so grateful to all of our donors including our recent young philanthropists. Just last week we received all of the proceeds from two bake sales held by five sixth grade students. The girls had learned about ACGT from a newspaper article and we are so honored they chose us as recipients. The girls had done all of the work themselves, including finding a site for the bake sale, crafting signs, promoting the sale and of course baking the treats. This is what giving is all about.

ACGT has been and continues to be the beneficiary of another wonderful group of volunteers, the group of local swimmers from Swim Across America Greenwich-Stamford Event. For the 8th consecutive year,  hundreds of swimmers, Olympians, cancer survivors, families, volunteers, boaters, kayakers will gather at the edge of Long Island Sound to raise money for a better way to treat cancer. All net proceeds fund the most promising research. Join us on June 21, 2014 for what is an inspiring morning.

Thank you also to all of those who have and continue to donate by celebrating life events with donations to ACGT. We have received donations in honor of a 90th Birthday, a wedding, a 60th birthday, from those who have played at  golf outings, run a half-marathon, run a lemonade stand, all knowing that 100% of what they give goes directly to funding research.  We are honored that they share their commitment and passions with us.

And of course for those of you whose passion is shopping, we participate with both AmazonSmile and Goodshop.  It is so easy to do – just shop at smile.amazon.com for your usual Amazon items and Amazon will donate a portion of many of the purchases to ACGT.  Please let your family, friends and business colleagues know and have fun fundraising.

Cutting Edge Web Site for Cutting Edge Research

tcells_largeAs you may have noticed, ACGT has revamped its web site!

In this ever-changing technical landscape, we want to be sure we can deliver you breakthroughs in the cancer field, progress of ACGT researchers, updates on clinical trials, creative ways to fundraise for ACGT, details about our funding partners, why you should donate to ACGT, and get information to you as quickly as possible. Please take some time and look at our Progress & Impact page, where the facts and figures still tell us that every minute of every day two people discover they have cancer, that 1 of 4 Americans will develop cancer at some point in time, that current treatments for cancer have hardly changed in the last fifty years and that the choices — chemotherapy, radiation and surgery — can be nearly as debilitating as the disease.

ACGT is the only public charity in the nation dedicated exclusively to the study of cell and gene therapies for cancer. ACGT supports research into treatments that directly attack the cancer, and only the cancer.  To date, we have funded 44 grants at 31 institutions in the US and Canada for both discovery and clinical translation.  ACGT researchers are triggering the immune system to detect and destroy cancers, researchers are strangulating the blood supply to kill cancer cells, or injecting reengineered genes from the patient to repair damaged or defective genes.

Gene therapies are also used in conjunction with chemotherapy to improve response rates. Rapid progress in technology and molecular medicine are paving the way to the greatest advance in cancer treatment in fifty years. As ACGT Scientific Advisory Council Michel Sadelain remarked at an ACGT event in October 2013, “we are on the cusp of a golden age of cancer prevention and treatment, thanks to the promise of recent discoveries.”

Margaret C. Cianci, Executive Director, ACGT
Ms. Cianci invites your comments and opinions.
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Gene Therapy for Cancer Takes Center Stage

Science Magazine - Cancer Immunotherapy is "Breakthrough of the Year"When ACGT was founded by Barbara and Edward Netter 13 years ago, no one could foresee that Cancer Immunotherapy would be selected as the “Breakthrough of the Year” in the December 2013 edition of Science Magazine, or take center stage at the annual AACR Conference taking place this week in San Diego (April 5-9).

ACGT Scientific Advisory Council members Lieping Chen, Carl June, Stephen Russell, Michel Sadelain and Drew Pardoll, as well as Research Fellows John Bell, Thomas Kipps, and Robert Vonderheide among others were all presenters at the Conference whose theme was “Harnessing Breakthroughs – Targeting Cures.”

Targeting cures is what ACGT is all about. It has been ACGT’s mission since the beginning to make cancer a “manageable” disease – to make it possible for all cancer patients to live longer lives, without any side effects of treatment, to have a better quality of life by using cells and genes as medicine. Each of the breakthrough therapies presented at the AACR conference such as by Drs. June, Sadelain, Kipps and Vonderheide received very early stage funding from ACGT and we are thrilled with the results of their research so far.  They are achieving remission in hundreds of patients with gene therapy.

The track record established by ACGT’s Scientific Advisory Council in its selection of grant awards is tremendously successful. But for every Young Investigator or Clinical Investigator grant that is funded by ACGT, there are so many other deserving Investigators that are not getting funded and who may just have the “breakthrough” science.

Donate online – or reach out to a friend or relative – or share this post with a colleague. Help continue to support innovative research that is changing the way cancer is treated and defeated.

Margaret C. Cianci, Executive Director, ACGT
Ms. Cianci invites your comments and opinions.
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