Action to Cure Kidney Cancer

We need your help now! The deadline for the Senate is Wednesday April 9th!

This year, ACKC is again leading a lobbying campaign in Washington, DC asking Congress to approve an appropriation of $15 million for kidney cancer research within the Department of Defense - see Military Aid for Kidney Cancer Research for details of previous campaigns. We are asking Senators to sign onto a bi-partisan Dear Colleague letter sponsored by Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Specter (R-Pa) addressed to the Chairs of the Defense Sub-Committee.

The Dear Colleague letter is requesting the $15 million appropriation, which, if granted, would increase the federal research budget for kidney cancer research by half.

Please call, and have all your friends and family call your/their Senators' health aides and ask them to have their Senators sign the Dear Colleague letter that is asking for the $15 million appropriation.

ACKC has been successful in getting the Department of Defense to include kidney cancer as one of 21 areas eligible to compete for research funds in the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program as part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. The total pot is $50 million. There are four award mechanisms funding grants from $900,000 plus indirect costs to $2.5 million plus indirect costs. the grants are from three to four years. To see the full details go to:

http://cdmrp.army.mil/pubs/press/2008/08prmrppreann.htm

Last year Maria Czyzyk-Kreska, MD, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati received a three year grant of $932,919 for kidney cancer research.

Maria Czyzyk-Krzeska

ACKC Lobbying Efforts Result in $933k Grant for Kidney Cancer Research

In 2006, Action to Cure Kidney Cancer and its supporters lobbied Congress seeking a $15 million appropriation within the Department of Defense's Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) for kidney cancer research (see Campaign 2006 below for details). Although we did not get the $15 million, we were successful in getting kidney cancer listed as one of the twenty-eight topic areas eligible to compete for $50 million in research grants in the FY2006 Peer Reviewed Medical Program (PRMRP), which is also within the CDMRP. This was the first time kidney cancer was eligible to receive Department of Defense (DoD) money for research.

Maria F. Czyzyk-Krzeska, MD, PhD of the University of Cincinnati, won a $932,919 three-year grant from the Defense Department's (DoD) Peer Review Medical Research Program to identify genes in kidney cancer oncogenesis. This grant, which commenced in early 2007, will run until early 2010, is the first grant ever awarded by DoD for kidney cancer research and is the result of a lobbying campaign by ACKC that requested a Congressional appropriation for kidney cancer research at the Department of Defense. We congratulate Dr. Czyzyk-Krzeska on her grant.

Richard Childs

ACKC has embarked on an exciting new project to raise money to support the work of Dr. Richard Childs of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Childs, one of the most renowned kidney cancer researchers in the country, has recently identified a tumor antigen that was derived from a newly discovered gene expressed in 70% of kidney cancer patients. This gene turns out to be a virus, which Dr. Childs hopes will lend itself to the development of an anti-tumor vaccine.

This year's ASCO conference produced no reports of any blockbuster drugs for kidney cancer. Of the 50+ oral sessions and poster presentations, half of them were devoted to results of sunitinib (Sutent) and/or sorafenib (Nexavar) treatment. Aside from testing new, targeted therapies, oncologists are combining therapies, each of which inhibit different classes of growth factors, in an attempt to achieve a synergistic response.