The Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation is giving a $100,000 grant to researchers at Upstate Medical University to study potential new treatments for children with cancer.

The Boeheim Foundation was founded in 2009 to help Central New York children in need and to provide support for eliminating cancer through research and advocacy, according to the foundation’s website. Cancer is currently the fourth leading cause of death in children, according to a March 5 Upstate Medical University press release.

“The Boeheim Foundation is pleased to support such vital research that holds the hope of better treatment for children with cancer,” Juli Boeheim, wife of Jim Boeheim, said in the release. “To be able to support this research right here in our own backyard, at Upstate Medical University, makes this grant that much more meaningful.”

The Boeheim Foundation grant will be used to support two areas of research within pediatric cancer, said Timothy Damron, professor of orthopedic surgery at Upstate. Damron said in an email that researchers at the university have investigated different forms of cancer during the last two decades.

The first area of research will investigate new treatment options for children with osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma of bone, Damron said. The second area of research will look at ways to reduce the adverse effects of radiation treatments for childhood cancer on bone growth and development.

“Osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma of bone are the most common pediatric bone malignancies,” Damron said. “This work proposes to evaluate both tumors with respect to their mechanisms of local invasion in order to identify potential translational treatments for affected children.”

Damron and Bryan Margulies, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and cell and developmental biology at Upstate, are the two principal investigators in the first research grant.

The survival rate of children diagnosed with osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma of bone is approximately 50–70 percent, according to the release.

Much of the current treatment of sarcomas focuses on the use of intensive chemotherapy drugs and a new treatment method is needed, Damron said.

“Newer treatment approaches are needed in order to cure these diseases,” he said.  “One novel approach would be to target the local labor in order to block the tumor’s ability to cause the damage that allows the tumor to spread and kill.”

The second area of research will be under the supervision of Damron and Megan Oest, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and cell and developmental biology at Upstate, and will focus on the adverse effects of treatment for childhood cancer, according to the release.

Damron said Upstate has not specifically studied the effects of radiation on stem cells as they relate to skeletal damage in these areas.

“Our global hypothesis is that radiation damage to stem cells, specifically mesenchymal stem cells, is key to the post-radiation musculoskeletal damage leading to limb length discrepancy and bone fragility,” he said.

There are two steps in investigating the role of mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, in bone damage, Damron said.

The first is to show that there’s a relationship between the radiation damage and damage to MSCs, and the second step is to show that rescuing MSCs will reduce adverse radiation musculoskeletal effects, Damron said.

Published on March 17, 2014 at 1:11 am

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306