A California foundation has awarded a $3 million grant to a TGen-led research team that will study the genetic roots of brain cancer.

The research team, which includes scientists from nine institutions, will study the genetic differences in brain tumors with the goal of providing better diagnosis and treatments for patients.

Scientists will use molecular tools to categorize tumors and test each tumor against several treatments to gauge whether the cancer responds.

The grant is the first awarded by the Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation, a new group formed by Phoenix native Catherine Ivy after her husband, Ben, succumbed to an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2005.

"I wanted this (research project) to set a tone," said Ivy, who splits her time between Phoenix and Palo Alto, Calif. "For every grant I ask, 'How does this affect the patient?'"

When her husband was diagnosed with a type of cancer called glioblastoma multiforme in the summer of 2005, Ivy said she was surprised by the limited research and treatment options for the disease.

Her husband, like most patients, received a standard treatment of surgery followed by chemotherapy. He died on Thanksgiving, just four months after diagnosis.

At the time, Ivy said, she assumed that cancer research provided a host of better treatment options for patients such as her husband. She sold her financial-planning business following his death and formed the foundation.

The foundation's award to Arizona-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) stemmed from a chance encounter.

TGen President and Scientific Director Jeffrey Trent struck up a conversation with Ivy at a Tucson conference.

They didn't know each other at the time, but they soon realized they attended the same high school, Arcadia High in Phoenix.

TGen's Michael Berens will oversee the project that will include scientists from Ohio State University, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of California-San Francisco, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minn., Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Ivy Foundation expects to award another $9 million in grants this year for brain-cancer research.


Author: Ken Alltucker
Source: The Arizona Republic