Racing toward cancer research

Organization that raises money for Penn cancer research gets ad space from NASCAR

Along sleek sides of a TRG Motorsports Chevrolet screams David Gilliland's usual slew of sponsors: the Ford Racing team, the Web site freecreditreport.com, candy bars Milky Way and Twix and Combos pretzel snacks.

But this past weekend, one slogan on the number 17 cobalt blue race car didn't read like gas station advertising.

In addition to his normal array, Gilliland also sported the phrase "Sarcoma, The Forgotten Cancer" in bright green lettering across his car during last Monday's Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa.

The National LeioMyoSarcoma Foundation - a group that has raised almost $1 million to finance research at both Penn and Stanford University - partnered with Gilliland's TRG Motorsports to raise awareness about leiomyosarcoma (LMS), a rare form of cancer.

The project began after North Carolina resident and NASCAR fan Amy Elliott fought the extremely rare, aggressive soft-tissue cancer and vowed to raise awareness upon her recovery.

Just last week, Elliot approached TRG Motorsports General Manager Mike Brown in hopes of fulfilling that mission. Brown, in turn, offered Elliot and the LMS foundation rights to a prime advertising spot that typically costs $50,000 to $100,000.

The new partnership, and the recognition and awareness it generated will, in turn, make research like the projects currently underway at Penn and Stanford possible.

Penn Pathology professor John Brooks currently relies on both monetary and physical donations (in the form of tissue samples) to study the role of LMS at Penn, while Pathology professor Matt van de Rijn runs a similar LMS lab at Stanford.

Beyond fundraising, the ultimate goal of the "Sarcoma" message is to grab the attention of legislators and the general public to ensure that the many forms of sarcoma are properly studied, said Brooks.

Since the very aggressive LMS affects only four individuals out of every 1 million, patients, and thus the tissue samples required for research, are extremely rare.

As a result, tissue banks such as the ones at Penn and Stanford often face difficulties raising enough samples to conduct adequate research.

Unlike more common cancers, Brooks says that those studying rare tumors don't have luxury of the "press and research dollars" to which other research groups have access.

Because of this lack of funding, "there has been little progress on our understanding of the molecular genetic mechanisms driving [LMS], nor on treating it."

However, with the help of the LMS foundation and 300 donated samples, van de Rijn and his Stanford lab team were able to perform the most extensive research done on the deadly disease so far.

While the Stanford team is still in the process of analyzing the results, Brooks and the LMS Repository Tissue Bank are working to store the samples and more recently donated tissues for future use.