In 1974, Sapna Syngal’s parents made a huge decision to leave their native India and immigrate to Canada, dreaming of greater opportunities and a better life for Sapna and her younger sister.

“It was almost like a family decision, but it was the right one,” says Syngal, who thrived in her new surroundings. She was accepted into medical school at McGill University in Montreal at the age of 18. After graduating at age 24, Syngal set her sights on the U.S., where she received her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health and completed a research fellowship at the Harvard Education Program in Cancer Prevention.

“I had a very direct and focused plan,” says Syngal of her career progression. “I wanted to take care of people and have a positive impact on the world.”

Today, Syngal is director of research in Dana-Farber’s Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention in Boston, MA, and is a Principal Investigator on the Stand Up To Cancer-Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Interception Dream Team.

“It’s fabulous,” says Syngal. “Stand Up is very innovative. I love their approach of bringing together these teams of phenomenal scientists and letting them do their thing, but with clear metrics and objectives. It’s a good combination.”

The Dream Team is conducting a national study called GENERATE aimed at healthy people who have a family member who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. “The goal is to teach these individuals about their risk of pancreatic cancer, learn about genetic testing and the benefits, and get them through the genetic testing process,” explained Syngal. “It involves a simple blood test, and if we find out participants carry a gene mutation, we help them get enrolled into prevention protocols with the goal of preventing pancreatic cancer.”

With such an ambitious and busy professional life, how does this mother of three daughters — her youngest is just starting college this year — relax and recharge?

“It’s really something I have to work on every day,” says Syngal, who credits a trip to the renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in the Berkshires 15 years ago as a life-changing experience. “I drove up there for one weekend and I was hooked.” Now her yoga, meditation and creative journaling practice help keep her grounded.

“To me, it’s very fundamental as a way of centering myself.”

Syngal’s discovery of the joys of yin (surrender) yoga, which involves just a few basic poses, lying on comfortable pillows and deep breathing, has enabled her to relax and recharge after especially tough days.

“The basic principle is rest and surrender, which can have a lot of value,” says Syngal. “Maybe the biggest challenge in my life is to feel like resting is OK, but that’s a total work in progress for me.”

Educating the public about cancer prevention is another work in progress for Syngal. In order to more effectively achieve that goal, Syngal is making another dream come true.

“I’ve always wanted to write a book and be a writer,” says Syngal, who’s fulfilling that dream by working on a book about cancer and genetics, which will feature patient’s stories related to her clinical work. One day, she hopes to take a crack at creative writing.

“I’d love to write a novel one day, but first things first,” she says.

Given all her past success and with such lofty ambitions for the future, it seems only fitting that her first name, Sapna, in Hindi literally means “dream.”

You can learn more about GENERATE at generatestudy.org.

Staying fit and trim is one common way to achieve better health, but can maintaining consistent weight also help prevent some forms of cancer?

Members of the SU2C Multiple Myeloma Dream Team have discovered that maintaining a lean and stable weight throughout life may provide the added benefit of preventing multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells that are part of our blood.

Researchers analyzed data from two very large studies that followed female and male healthcare workers over decades. They correlated patterns of stable weight, or weight gain-loss cycling and multiple myeloma diagnoses. The researchers found that people who had extreme weight cycling — gain and loss of more than 20 pounds — had an increased risk of developing multiple myeloma when compared to individuals who maintained their weight. In addition, individuals who started with a mid-range body shape and grew larger, had a greater risk of developing multiple myeloma than those who maintained a lean body shape throughout adulthood.

This study adds to the body of research that finds maintaining a lean and stable weight throughout life can reduce the risk of cancers such as multiple myeloma. You can read the scientific paper here.

* Grants are managed by the SU2C Department of Science Strategy and Management and AACR, the Scientific Partner of SU2C.

New research from a SU2C Convergence Research Team may lead to a breakthrough in the fight against several forms of treatment-resistant blood cancer.

It’s been previously known that patients with the blood cancers acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and plastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) may be initially resistant to treatment or develop resistance over time. But new research from Joan Montero, PhD, the V-Foundation Scholar on a SU2C Convergence Research Team, uncovered a biological mechanism associated with treatment resistance and devised a new combination of drugs already approved by the FDA to overcome such resistance, including a chemotherapy which delivers the toxin secreted by the diptheria bacterium. The resistance mechanism Dr. Montero found uses an epigenetic switch to turn off a gene required for the diphtheria toxin to be lethal. Epigenetic switches are a tool that cells use to turn genes on and off without changing the DNA.

The discovery means that drugsusing this new approach will be effective for more people, and for longer periods of time. So far, this research was conducted in the laboratory, and is now being studied in patients in a phase I clinical trial. You can read the scientific paper here.

Exciting new research supported by a SU2C Innovative Research Grant (IRG) early-career researcher has found that a natural hormone in your body that kills your appetite might also be able to kill cancer.

The research determined that leptin — a natural hormone that lets the brain know when the body is full — can be used to mobilize immune system T cells against cancers like melanoma and pancreatic cancer.

While leptin can’t be given alone as treatment, researchers developed a bioengineered virus to produce and secrete leptin that can be used to treat cancer patients. In a one-two punch against cancer, the virus itself can kill cancer cells, and the leptin made by virus infected cells can reprogram and activate the metabolism of T cells in the immune system, enabling them to attack the cancer cells. You can read the scientific paper here.

Greg M. Delgoffe, PhD, a 2016 SU2C Innovative Research Grant (IRG) recipient, is focused on immunotherapy approaches to improve and combine the use of cancer-fighting viruses with a group of drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors to achieve a more potent immune response. To date, SU2C has supported more than $150 million in researching immunotherapy to treat cancer across its entire portfolio.

Bumping into an old friend on the street can be great fun — or super awkward. Just ask SU2C Ambassador Paul Rudd, who turned this premise into a highly entertaining cause-marketing spot produced by Mastercard, which aired July 9 on the MLB Network during the Major League Baseball All-Star game. The spot showed Rudd caught in a humorous case of mistaken identity, while encouraging everyone to “Dine Out” and catch up with old friends, family and co-workers, and pay with your Mastercard to support cancer research.

The campaign also featured a pair of unlikely allies — opposing All-Star game managers, Red Sox Manager Alex Cora and Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts — and marked the 10th consecutive year that Mastercard’s “Dine Out” summer campaign has supported SU2C.

This memorable campaign comes on the heels of the incredibly successful PSA that saw Stand Up To Cancer and Mastercard joining forces with Marvel Studios for a PSA featuring Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame superheroes coming together to defeat cancer. You may remember reading all about this campaign in the last edition of the newSTAND. You can see the PSA here.

Throughout July, American Airlines provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add a loved one’s name on to the official Stand Up To Cancer airplane in honor of cancer patients and survivors as well as those who have passed from the disease.

The powerful “Life’s Journeys” campaign launched July 1 with a cause marketing spot featuring Stand Up To Cancer Ambassador Tim McGraw alongside six American Airlines team members from across the U.S. Those who made a donation of $25 or more towards this campaign during the month could add the name of a person they stand up for to an American Airlines Airbus A321.

Over 22K names were added to the plane, which was unveiled at an event in Los Angeles on September 20. To mark the inaugural flight of the official Stand Up To Cancer plane, a group of cancer survivors and caregivers were whisked away to Orlando for a weekend getaway.

The campaign resulted in significant press coverage, including exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the shoot with Tim McGraw on People.com, as well as coverage on iHeart Radio, Yahoo News, Yahoo Entertainment, CNN Money, The Drum, and CBS Dallas/Fort Worth. You can watch the broadcast spot by clicking here.

Matt Damon, Jordana Brewster, and Joe Manganiello were among the Stand Up To Cancer Ambassadors featured in the latest collaboration between SU2C and its founding donor Major League Baseball.

On July 9, SU2C launched a new public service awareness (PSA) campaign — titled “For All The Moments We Stand Up” — in collaboration with MLB during the 2019 MLB All-Star Game Presented by Mastercard.

The campaign centered on the classic, lighthearted touch points in baseball, before culminating with the now-iconic SU2C placard moment when tens of thousands of fans, players, managers and other on-field personnel stand for a moment of silence in support of a loved one affected by cancer.

In addition to Damon, Brewster and Manganiello, the PSAs featured ambassadors whose lives have been touched by cancer in some way, including Uzo Aduba, Zachary Levi and Candice Patton. The broadcast PSA also includes Connor, a Ewing sarcoma survivor, and Marshella, a breast cancer survivor. You can watch the PSA by clicking here.

Media interest in the star-studded PSA was phenomenal, with coverage including an exclusive behind-the-scenes segment on Entertainment Tonight, as well as stories in Adweek, Men’s Health, The Boston Globe, MSN and The Morning Call en Español, among others.

MLB’s touching tribute to Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco, who revealed in June 2019 that he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, also resulted in considerable media coverage of both Carlos and our SU2C MLB iconic placard moment. Stories ran in The New York Times, USA Today, Associated Press, Forbes Online, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and Los Angeles Times en Español.

Since it launched, the PSA has been widely distributed in major print, broadcast, digital and out-of-home outlets. You may have seen the PSA in Sports Illustrated, Parade, Forbes, Vanity Fair, Vogue, WSJ. Magazine, People or People en Español, or splashed on billboards in Times Square or in storefronts such as this one on Houston & Lafayette in New York City (pictured).

A social media campaign, which included a friendly challenge of National League vs. American League Facebook fundraisers, in support of the MLB PSA generated 1.3MM impressions and 33.7K engagements, which contributed $25K in total online donations.

You can see the PSA here.

He has long hair, jams with Willie Nelson, and is a tireless innovator in the fight against cancer. Now he’s the subject of a major Hollywood documentary.

Nobel Laureate Jim Allison — leader of the Stand Up To Cancer-Cancer Research Institute (CRI) Cancer Immunology Dream Team — gets the star treatment in Jim Allison: Breakthrough which delves into Allison’s remarkable life and reveals why he’s committed to do whatever it takes to help more patients become long-term survivors.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker and sustainability entrepreneur Bill Haney, and narrated by actor Woody Harrelson, the film launched its theatrical run in major U.S. cities including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston. It has been earning rave reviews since its debut at SXSW this spring and is set to be distributed in over 100 theaters across 50 U.S. cities this fall.

To see the trailer, click here.

In August, the FDA granted “breakthrough therapy designation” for a new immunotherapy CAR T-cell treatment for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The breakthrough therapy designation is designed to expedite development and FDA review of the treatment. Development of new immunotherapies for blood cancer have focused on targeting the treatment to specific proteins found in the cancer. Members of the SU2C-St. Baldrick’s Pediatric Cancer Dream Team working in Co-Leader Crystal Mackall’s lab contributed to early clinical evidence that this treatment targeting the “CD22” protein would be a substantial improvement over available therapy for children whose leukemia comes back or doesn’t respond to standard therapy. Prior work of this dream team contributed to the development of the T-cell therapy which targeted a different protein, “CD19,” to treat B-cell leukemia. The CD19 therapy was approved by the FDA in March 2018. Approximately half of children treated with CD19 targeted therapies relapse driving the need for this new treatment. Read more.

SU2C Dream Team members continue to make headlines and win awards for their groundbreaking research. On September 10, SU2C Breast Cancer Dream Team Leader Dennis Slamon, MD, PhD, with two colleagues H. Michael Shepard, PhD and Axel Ullrich, PhD, received the 2019 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for the invention Herceptin and its development as a life-saving therapy for women with breast cancer. Herceptin is a targeted therapy for breast cancer, the first of its kind to specifically block a cancer-causing protein. This drug reduces the risk of recurrence and extends survival time for patients with advance breast cancer that has spread to other organs, as well as early-stage disease. Every year, more than 50,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with the type of breast cancer that the drug attacks, and over 2.3 million individuals have received the treatment since it became available.

Subsequent to his work on Herceptin, Slamon led the SU2C Breast Cancer Dream Team, whose research contributed to the development of palbociclib, approved by the FDA in 2015. Read more.