You are cordially invited to attend a FREE Friend-Raising Breakfast for Dani’s Foundation
Thursday, October 11
7:30 A.M. – 8:30 A.M.
Ritz Carlton Denver
1881 Curtis Street – Denver, CO
Time is fast approaching for the 2nd Annual Dani’s Foundation Community Education Breakfast which will take place on Thursday, October 11 at 7:30 a.m. at the Ritz Carlton in Denver. We would like to personally invite you to attend this very special one-hour breakfast meeting that is guaranteed to be a most enlightening experience forany pediatric sarcoma advocate.
We are thrilled to report that two amazing pediatric sarcoma research programs will be presented at this year’s breakfast meeting. Dr. Aykut Uren, from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, will be joining David Shanahan, President of the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center, and both will be sharing information on how they are working to eliminate the metastasis issues which plague many cancer and pediatric sarcoma patients. This is very exciting research for the cancer community at large but especially for Dani’s Foundation and those patients which we seek to serve!
Dr. Aykut Uren is an Associate Professor of Oncology, Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. He will be traveling to Denver on October 11th to update Dani’s Foundation on the research that he is conducting that will prevent osteosarcoma from spreading to the lungs of its patients.
Uren and his colleagues at Georgetown are working on a new agent that will stop or inhibit “ezrin,” a protein vital to the spread of osteosarcoma. This research was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting earlier this year. If proven effective in human studies, their ezrin inhibitor might potentially treat adults whose cancers are fueled by over-expression of this protein, and could be a life-saver for children with bone tumors.
“If we can prevent metastatic disease in osteosarcoma, we will significantly improve survival and quality of life for these patients,” states Uren.
David Shanahan, President of the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center, will be skyping in for the October 11 breakfast meeting for Dani’s Foundation. He will be discussing the remarkable cancer treatment advancements that are being made at his institution and, in particular, he will be discussing news on the center’s most exciting Ewing’s Sarcoma clinical trial that is utilizing the patient’s tumor as a vaccine to fight future occurrences of cancer within the patient’s body.
Earlier this summer, the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center made international news by removing the lung tumor from 18-year-old Ewing’s Sarcoma patient. Once removed, researchers at the center used the tumor to make a personal vaccine that was then injected into the patient’s body as a cancer fighting agent. Similar personal vaccines have worked for other types of cancers and they are hoping that this current clinical trial will work for Ewing’s Sarcoma.
Also speaking at the October 11th breakfast will be 6-time pediatric sarcoma patient Woody Roseland. Roseland has taken his personal tragedies and turned them into a story of great inspiration. He has been a featured speaker at the Denver edition of TedEx and continues to travel the country; speaking to the cancer community on how to overcome the effects of the dreadful disease. Just recently, Roseland spoke at the Foundation’s Hold ‘Em to Help ‘Em event and proved to inspire many business leaders with his personal story and passionate plea for Dani’s Foundation.
In addition to the above, Dani’s Foundation will be taking time during the October 11th breakfast meeting to award its first annual “Good Sport” Awards to three individuals who have assisted the Foundation in advancing our overall awareness to Colorado and beyond. USA Olympian Missy Franklin and University of Arizona Swimmer Bonnie Brandon will be joining KUSA TV Sport Producer David Hunt in receiving recognition for their work on this summer’s Become A Champion in the Battle Against Pediatric Cancer public awareness campaign. Thanks to KUSA’s production of two public service spots that featured Franklin and Brandon, many volunteers were recruited and will be joining with Dani’s Foundation to assist in the staging of our many programs and special events.
We are hopeful that you will set aside one hour to join us at our second annual Community Education Breakfast on Thursday, October 11th. We are sure that this single meeting will prove most enlightening for any pediatric sarcoma advocate and will serve to reignite your involvement within Dani’s Foundation as we work together to raise the funding that is necessary to advance research, educate the public and lend assistance to the pediatric sarcoma community.
To RSVP your attendance to the October 11th breakfast meeting, email your reply to martha@danisfoundation.org or call 303.601.1881.
