The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research and Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) announced Sunday at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research that they are entering into a formal strategic partnership to drive research to improve outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients. The Pancreatic Cancer Collective will accelerate research for pancreatic cancer patients who desperately need better treatments. With support from the Lustgarten Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer, the Pancreatic Cancer Collective launches with an initial commitment of $25 million.
Since 2012, the Lustgarten Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer have built a robust collaboration, jointly funding more than 170 investigators across 28 leading research centers in both the United States and United Kingdom. These efforts include four Dream Teams, five Research Teams, including two Convergence Teams bringing together computational experts with clinical oncologists. Cancer Interception, research supporting the earliest diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, even before the cancer may have fully formed is the focus of one of the Dream Teams and one of the Research Teams. All told, these collaborative teams have planned, started or completed 22 clinical trials.
Building on the successful outcomes of their multi-year history, the Lustgarten Foundation and SU2C aim to create a dynamic and fluid network to engage and influence medical institutions, researchers and companies, aligned to achieve something bigger and more meaningful, in particular to:
- Inspire collaboration among people who haven’t yet worked together
- Spread funding to new centers
- Leverage AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning
- Improve diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and find new medicines for pancreatic cancer
- Utilize the breadth and expertise of existing Teams and researchers supported by SU2C and the Lustgarten Foundation to support new investigators coming into the field, building expertise and capacity for additional research in the future
Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp Ph.D., chair of the Stand Up To Cancer Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), and Institute professor, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with David Tuveson, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientist for the Lustgarten Foundation, Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center and the Roy J. Zuckerberg Professor, as well as a member of the SU2C SAC, will serve as the Collective’s scientific leadership.
The first request for applications (RFA) will seek projects focusing on pre-clinical development research to increase the number of innovative and effective therapies to treat pancreatic cancer. The Collective will welcome Teams currently supported by SU2C and the Lustgarten Foundation as well as researchers and institutions new to these organizations and the Collective.
