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‘Little Cancer Charity that Could’ Chugs Away at Supporting Basic Research

2008; Wolters Kluwer; Volume: 30; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/01.cot.0000319615.14328.81

1548-4688

Eric T. Rosenthal,

Health and Medical Research Impacts

“The Little Engine that Could” is how the leadership of the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) likes to describe itself—borrowing from the inspirational classic children's book about the little blue locomotive that chanted “I think I can” continuously as it successfully pulled a train full of toys and food over a tall mountain after three far bigger and more powerful engines had refused to take on the task. When asked why this moralistic tale served as its metaphorical slogan—along with its official tagline: Research for a Cure—Franklin C. Salisbury Jr., NFCR President and the son of its co-founder, said that it was because the Bethesda-based organization had been supporting basic research for 35 years at a time when far larger organizations had not, and because the federal government wasn't funding riskier scientific projects. Since its founding in 1973 by the senior Mr. Salisbury and 1937 Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi, MD, PhD, NFCR has spent more than $250 million in support of basic science cancer research and prevention education focused on the reasons cells turn cancerous—with numerous recipients achieving scientific milestones along the way. Large Base of Small Donations Yet, outside of the scientific community, NFCR has maintained a relatively low profile, except for its 1.2 million donors who've been contributing to this cancer charity an average of $15 each, with about half of them demonstrating ongoing loyalty, and for a cause as abstract and “unsexy” as basic science. The Foundation got its start in the early days of direct mail solicitation, creating its own donor lists, and, as Mr. Salisbury says, 60% of its fundraising costs go directly to the federal government—for postage.Figure: NFCR President Franklin C. Salisbury Jr., noted that the organization is especially interested in providing seed money for research that is difficult to find funding for elsewhere.It may also be that by sustaining fairly consistent contributions over the years from a large base of many small donations, the 501(c)3 organization has been able to maintain a greater level of stability and independence than it might have if it had been more dependent on the largesse of a few big-time benefactors. The genesis of NFCR can be traced back to an article in the April 29, 1971, issue of the Washington Evening Star about Dr. Szent-Gyo¨rgyi's financial hardships that the elder Mr. Salisbury had read, and which moved him to send the scientist a check for $25. Letter from Albert Szent-Györgyi Mr. Salisbury said his father received a thank-you letter from the Nobelist—honored for his study on vitamin C and cell respiration, and later involved in developing an electronic theory of cancer that applied quantum physics to the biochemistry of cancer—that read: “I am deeply touched by your great generosity and compassion. I have worked very hard all my life with the aim to conquer this terrible disease, and now I see my way clear through to an understanding and cure. I will do my best to spend every penny most carefully to the greatest advantage. What I want to add is that such a donation means much more than its dollar equivalent. It is a great encouragement which, sometimes, is badly needed.” The letter was dated May 28, 1971—seven months before President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act officially declaring war on the disease—and prompted Mr. Salisbury, a constitutional lawyer and entrepreneur, to follow up with Dr. Szent-Györgyi about scheduling a face-to-face meeting that would take place at the Institute for Muscle Research at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. Mr. Salisbury, who had created a number of for-profit corporations leading to among other things the invention of solid rocket propellant, told Dr. Szent-Györgyi that he had recently resigned as a house counsel and wanted to use his knowledge and experience to help form a private nonprofit organization dedicated to funding scientists working on basic research in cancer. In 1973 the two co-founded NFCR, and 20 years later Mr. Salisbury Jr., who had been trained as both an attorney and Episcopalian minister, joined his father in running the foundation. Dr. Szent-Györgyi died in 1986; and Mr. Salisbury's father died in 1997. ‘Adventure Funding’ The younger Mr. Salisbury said that since its founding NFCR has supported cutting-edge basic research that could lead to curing cancer, and has been especially interested in providing seed money for research that is difficult to find funding for elsewhere. “We give scientists the adventure funding so they can discover what they can and then go and get federal funding for,” he said, adding that many people say that to get federal funding from NCI you have to have done the research already. “The role we play is funding innovative scientists. We have a peer review committee of eminent scientists. Hal Dvorak came to us with a proposal in 1982 wondering why all these tumors were leaking, and he later discovered VEGF [vascular endothelial growth factor] with our funding. “Csaba Horvath discovered HPLC [high performance liquid chromatography] at Yale with our support, and now every drug in the world is made through this process. And we gave Bill Hazeltine the seed money to fund the pharmacogenetics department at Dana-Farber. “We don't micromanage the funding or the research, but as Clifton Leaf [then Executive Editor of Fortune magazine, who wrote about why we aren't winning the war against cancer] said in his plenary remarks at the 2005 AACR Annual Meeting, ‘If you want to cure cancer, look at the National Foundation for Cancer Research—they liberate scientists,’ and then afterwards everyone congratulated me and asked for money.” Contracts with Institutions NFCR funds minimum annual grants of $50,000, with many in the $100,000 range. But Mr. Salisbury said they really aren't grants but rather contracts with the institutions where the research is funded, with overhead limited at 15%. “We don't get much credit, because they don't go through the development department, but rather through grants and contracts, which is a very efficient mechanism to go forward with renewals,” he said. “We have an intellectual property clause that gives us the right to first refusal if something comes out of the research and we can help scientists bring it to the patients.” Categories of Funding NFCR funding is made in several categories: Fellows are funded for five years; Project Directors for two years; and Research Discovery Centers for five years. These centers are “laboratories without walls” that are established at specific institutions but connect with researchers at other NFCR-funded laboratories including the Fellows and Project Directors. The collaborative ventures encourage sharing of ideas and information among researchers working on cancer from multiple perspectives. Current centers include the following: The Center for Metastasis Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The Center for Molecular Imaging at Case Western Reserve University. The Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies at Translational Genomic Research Institute. The Center for Anti-Cancer Drug Design and Discovery at Yale University. The Center for Therapeutic Antibody Engineering at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The Center for Computational Drug Discovery at the University of Oxford, UK. The Center for Molecular Targeted Therapy at the Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology in Beijing. The Center for Proteomics and Drug Action at Vanderbilt University. The Joint Tissue Banking Facility at Tianjin Cancer Institute and Hospital in P.R. China. The Center for Global Collaboration, also at Tianjin. Danny R. Welch, PhD Danny R. Welch, PhD, the Leonard H. Robinson Professor of Pathology and Professor of Cell Biology and Pharmacology/Toxicology at UAB, now heads the Center for Metastasis Research. But he was a relatively junior faculty member at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in the mid-1990s when he first met Franklin Salisbury Jr. Mr. Salisbury was visiting the medical center to explore potential funding opportunities when an unforeseen scheduling change allowed him additional time with Dr. Welch, who had recently published “KiSS-1, A Novel Human Malignant Melanoma Metastasis-Suppressor Gene in the Dec. 4, 1996 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The two ended up speaking together for about three hours. In recounting that meeting in an interview for this article, Dr. Welch said he became aware that over the years NFCR had been funding a virtual “who's who” of basic researchers including his own mentor, Garth L. Nicolson, PhD. And Mr. Salisbury learned that Dr. Welch's laboratory had preliminary data that indicated the discovery of additional KiSS metastasis suppressors that could be potentially therapeutic. That meeting led to what has become a steady source of funding for Dr. Welch for the last 12 years, amounting to $1.2 million to $1.5 million, he said. “The Foundation has been willing to fund high-risk stuff, and has been my preliminary data pool for nearly every NIH grant I've written since then. Without them we never would have found the other metastasis suppressors. They provided seed money that I and my colleagues have used for program project grants, and once those projects have received NIH funding, we've been able to use the NFCR money to begin other innovative research. “It's been nice to know that someone trusts you before anyone else; it's been kind of like your mother. In fact Franklin and some of the other NFCR staff came up to visit during an NCI site visit several years ago—in many ways it's a cancer research family.” Generic-Sounding Name Organizational recognition has perhaps been elusive because of its highly generic-sounding name, which, according to some sources, got the NFCR inadvertently caught up several years ago in the American Cancer Society's hunt for certain less-honorable, look-alike organizations that might have been siphoning off some contributions. NFCR also feels it has not always received sufficient credit for its role in recognizing, funding, and promoting promising if perhaps riskier research before some of the bigger engines were ready to take on the task. But fund raising can be a competitive business. “Virtually every scientific discovery has been contributed to by multiple organizations and virtually all of them try to take full credit for being the critical organization, since people want to support organizations that are critical,” Dr. Welch observed. Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research In an effort to boost its visibility somewhat, the NFCR established the Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research in 2006, providing the recipient with a $25,000 cash award. Originally conceived of as a biannual honor, it soon became an annual affair, with Harold F. Dvorak, MD, as the first awardee, followed by Webster K. Cavenee, PhD, last year; and Carlo M. Croce, MD, this year. The prize has been solely awarded by the NFCR, unlike past awards that were presented jointly, such as the AACR-NFCR Professorship in Basic Cancer Research in honor of Franklin and Tamara Salisbury, which had been presented for several years at AACR's Annual Meeting. Dr. Croce, Director of the Human Cancer Genetics Program and Director of the Institute of Genetics at The Ohio State University, won for his groundbreaking discoveries regarding the direct and causative association of chromosomal translocations with the molecular mechanisms of oncogene activation, research that paved the way for new avenues in the development of a variety of therapies to target cancer.Figure: Shown here with Dr. Croce (center) are Dr. Cavenee (left), and Martin J. Birkhofer, MD, Vice President of Medical Affairs for Bristol-Myers Squibb.“I am particularly delighted to recognize Dr. Croce, as his research epitomizes the very essence of the Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize. His work has provided several monumental advances in our understanding of the nature of cancer and has also led to new approaches to diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of cancer that exploits its essential genetic makeup,” said Dr. Cavenee, who chaired the selection committee. “Dr. Szent-Györgyi was an inspiration to so many of us in the cancer research field for his belief in the role of basic science in breaking apart cancer's mysteries,” Dr. Croce said. “Winning this Prize, named in his honor, means a great deal to me personally, and I am humbled to have been selected by my peers to receive it….The support of the National Foundation for Cancer Research over the years both for this Prize and for basic cancer research has been a vital part of many significant research discoveries.”