Foundation President Annette Bakker Participates in Key Meetings Dedicated to
Accelerating the Cure for Cancer
The White House recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, an effort being led by Vice President Joseph Biden to cut in half the time it takes to develop effective cancer treatments. The Vice President has gathered leaders from across the research community, from both the private and public sectors, to focus on reforming the incentives and measures that impact treatment timelines and success factors. The Children’s Tumor Foundation is part of this important work, by offering the example of its own tumor research models as an illustration of innovative research endeavors in this field.
Foundation President and Chief Scientific Officer Annette Bakker, PhD, has participated in several White House related meetings related to this initiative, including most recently at the Vice President’s invitation, where he delivered his one-year Cancer Moonshot Task Force report laying out the organizational framework and implementation plan to “end cancer as we know it”.
The Children’s Tumor Foundation has put together a strategic roadmap for accelerating the path to treatments for neurofibromatosis, also known as NF, a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body. It can lead to a number of issues for the patient, including blindness, deafness, bone abnormalities, learning disabilities, disabling pain, and cancer. NF affects 1 in 3,000 people of every population equally, and there is not yet a cure.
“We are grateful to the Vice President and the entire National Cancer Moonshot team for including the Children’s Tumor Foundation and the NF community in this critical enterprise, and for recognizing the great strides we’ve made in NF research,” said Annette Bakker. “The Foundation’s collaborative research models – from the Neurofibromatosis Therapeutic Consortium to our most recent Synodos initiative – has delivered positive results which we share openly with the cancer research community and the world. All our stakeholders, including NF patients, are partners in this effort to more quickly find cures for disease.”
The work of the Foundation’s Neurofibromatosis Therapeutic Consortium has most recently led to a highly promising ongoing MEK inhibitor clinical trial in which over 50% of participants have seen at least a 20% reduction in their inoperable tumor growth. This critical milestone in NF patient care is directly related to the collaborative nature of the consortium participants. Similarly, the Foundation has launched an even more collaborative research model called Synodos, in which leading researchers from dozens of institutions have come together to openly share data in the effort to speed up the path-to-treatment process. Early results from this initiative are also showing great promise.
To learn more about the Children’s Tumor Foundation and its innovative research models, please visit ctf.org.
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Annette Bakker with Greg Simon, White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force Executive Director |
Annette Bakker with Vice President Joe Biden |
