The Paul G. Allen Foundation for Medical Research's generous gift of $2 million is funding innovative research through a major new program known as the Early Detection Initiative. This program hopes to develop tests that could alert doctors to the earliest signs of cancer. The goal of the Hutchinson Center's Early Detection Initiative, headed by its president and director, Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell, Ph.D., is the early identification of the onset and risk of a wide range of cancers and other diseases so they can be prevented or treated as soon as possible. "The importance of this work is underscored by the fact that survival rates improve dramatically when cancers are diagnosed early, when the disease is still confined to the organ of origin," Hartwell said.
For example, if all colorectal-cancer cases were detected when localized, the overall five-year survival rates could improve from 64 percent to 90 percent. Early detection also is key to managing breast, ovarian, prostate and other cancers. The five-year survival rate for breast- and prostate-cancer patients with localized, early stage disease is 85 percent to 95 percent and remains high at 10 years.
This generous gift will help the Hutchinson Center to develop, test and implement methods for detecting proteins that signify the presence or risk of cancer in human blood samples. Researchers will use techniques made possible by the rapidly advancing field of proteomics, which attempts to catalog and describe the function of all of the proteins made by a cell or organism. Cancer cells may produce unique proteins, or proteins in different quantities, compared to normal cells.
The Paul G. Allen Foundation for Medical Research promotes innovative medical research in a variety of fields. The Foundation funds programs encompassing a broad range of disciplines including biochemistry, biomedical engineering, virology, immunology, cell and molecular biology, pharmacology and genetics. The Foundation is one of six Paul G. Allen Foundations in Seattle, which are focused on strengthening families and communities in the Pacific Northwest. Lear more about the foundations online at www.pgafoundations.com.
Others funding the Early Detection Initiative are the W.M. Keck Foundation and California businessman, Donald J. Listwin.
