Our vision is simple: Cancer-free lives for all kids.
Our mission is to provide direct funding for pediatric cancer research.
Our Mission
The Jeffrey Pride Foundation for Pediatric Cancer Research is an all-volunteer 501(c)3 founded in 2000 in memory of Jeffrey Pride, and in response to learning that pediatric cancer research is severely underfunded, receiving less than 4% of the National Cancer Institute’s(NCI) funding for cancer research.
The need for private funding like ours is more urgent than ever. Drug companies rarely fund pediatric cancer research in a significant way and government grants via NCI have been cut 30% over the last 10 years. At a point in time where there are so many promising ideas for research, funding is more limited than ever and life-saving research goes undone.
Important Facts to Remember About Pediatric Cancers:
*Cancer is the #1 disease killer of children in the United States, resulting in the death of more children than most other childhood diseases in combined.
*14,000 new cases of pediatric cancers are diagnosed each year (nearly 2 classrooms of children every day)
*1 in every 300 children will receive a cancer diagnosis by the age of 20
Over the past 24 years we've supported drug research, clinical trials and most recently genomic testing of children's cancer cells. This provides children with the most promising, targeted and specific treatments for their cancers. These new developments quite possibly could have changed Jeff's treatment and he and other children like him might have been healthy adults today.
Our Story
Our foundation is named after a brave little boy named Jeffrey Pride. Jeff's short life was full of many loves. He loved his parents and sisters, his friends, his dog, school, hockey, NASCAR, video games, drawing, and building models. Jeff was a hard worker, and he fought hard in his two-year battle with leukemia.
Still, three days after his seventh birthday, Jeff died.
In the course of his battle, his parents came to realize how under funded cancer research was for children, even by the large foundations and societies that have become household names. Surrounded by caring friends, the foundation was born with the aim of cancer-free lives for children becoming a reality. To date, JPF has donated close to 5 million dollars to the fight against Pediatric Cancer.
Video from 2020 Virtual Gala
What We've Achieved
We have helped bring about a dozen new drugs to clinical trials. One of those drugs, Gleevec, has proven to be so successful that it is now being used as a frontline chemotherapy in high risk kids.
We helped support a large scale genomic study, the only one of it’s kind being done in the world at the time, looking at cancer from the molecular level, studying the DNA of cancer cell.
Utilizing the valuable information gained from that study we continued genetic testing looking at markers that help determine each child’s genetic risk level, allowing very specific targeted treatments to be developed that attack only the cancer cells and leave the rest of the body unharmed.
In more recent funding, we continued down the same path, supporting more genetic testing that looks at how much cancer remains after the first stage of chemotherapy, the induction phase. Once determined, very specific, targeted therapies could be developed.
WHAT WE are currently supporting
2023-2024 Grants to Children’s Oncology Group Research
NEW PROJECTS IN 2024:
Jeffrey Pride Foundation Integrated Correlative Biology Awards- for COG Reference Laboratories
COG Reference libraries are responsible for the processing, testing and banking of biospecimens for COG protocols and support all COG Disease committees. Decreases in funding from the National Cancer Institute has necessitated a need for philanthropic support and the Jeffrey Pride Foundation is honored to help with this funding.
Four studies have received 2024 grants in the following areas:
---Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), - David Teachey, MD , Committee Chair
1-Terzah Horton, MD, Baylor College of Medicine – “Using proteomics in B cell-ALL to optimize therapy selection and discover therapy targets” This study will identify drugs that will treat abnormal proteins that do not respond to traditional chemotherapy regimens.
2-Thai Hoa Tran, MD, Centre Hospitalier Universitare Sainte-Justine, Quebec – “End-Consolidtion Flow Minimal Residual Disease Testing.” This study addresses chemotherapy toxicity issues in Philadelphia chromosome positive ALL. New immunotherapies are being studied to give a new standard-of-care for patients that have higher than desired leukemia levels after traditional treatments.
---Acute Myloid Leukemia (AML),- Todd Cooper, DO, Committee Chair
Grants in this area are pending for 2025. Future studies include targeting and inhibiting certain genes that are present in patients with poor prognosis. Another area is to further the partnership with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society to collect and analyze date for children with relapsed leukemia.
--- Hodgkins Lymphoma, - Sharon Castellino, MD, MSc, Committee Chair
3-Lisa Giulino-Roth, MD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University – “Defining Biomarker of Response to Immunotherapy in Pediatric Hodgkin Lymphoma.” This cancer of the lymph nodes is aggressive and traditional chemotherapy puts many survivors at risk for heart disease and other cancers. Tumor imaging and genetic sequencing studies will bring understanding to availability/effectiveness of new combination therapies.
---Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, - Carl Allen, MD, Phd, Committee Chair
4-Lisa Giulino-Roth, MD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University – “Genomic & Immunologic Predictors of Response in Primary Mediastinal B-cell Lymphoma.” Primary Mediastinal B-cell Lymphoma is rare and aggressive. To increase understanding of best patient results, this study will evaluate tumor and blood from patients. This will determine genetic markers that will predict proactively if current therapies are appropriate or necessitate combinations of therapies.
PROJECTS ONGOING IN 2024:
Project Title : Project Every Child
This group-wide COG initiative aims to capture the biology and outcome of every child diagnosed with cancer in the United States and COG’s affiliated countries. Specimens were collected from patients in United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia. Scientists worldwide can access the Project:EveryChild biobank of more than 250,000 biospecimens collected from nearly 52,000 patients, along with volumes of related data related to the patients specific disease in a collaborative effort to find better, less toxic, and more patient-specific cures for children with cancer.
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Project Title: B-ALL MRD Testing at End of Consolidation for COG AALL1731
The COG Phase 3 protocol AALL1731 was activated in June 2019 with a goal of enrolling more than 6,400 leukemia patients, including those with Down syndrome, over a 5-year period in order to study the effectiveness of a drug called Blinatumomab in conjunction with chemotherapy. This protocol includes testing after consolidation (a period of intensified therapy following initial remission) to determine the presence of minimal residual disease, which is the term used to describe the small number of cancer cells remaining after treatment. COG has funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to test for minimal residual disease at higher levels (>0.099%), however additional funding from The Jeffrey Pride Foundation has allowed us to also perform these tests on children that have even lower, more difficult to determine levels of residual cancer. This should be complete in 2025.
Project Title: CD22 Expression in B-ALL for COG AALL1732
In the COG Phase 3 protocol AALL1732, COG institutions test high-risk leukemia patients for a specific biomarker called CD22 before children can be eligible for a later stage component of the protocol. CD22 is a difficult biomarker to test for, and in some cases smaller institutions may not be equipped for this testing at all. COG has designed the protocol in such a way that participating institutions can submit a frozen blood sample to a specialized laboratory that can perform centralized testing to confirm the presence of CD22, even in patients who may have previously tested negative for the biomarker at their home institution. The Jeffrey Pride Foundation has provided funding for this testing since the onset of the protocol in 2019. This should be complete in 2025.
PRIOR YEAR STUDY TRANSFERRED:
Project Title : AALL2131 – International Phase 3 Trial for patients with ALL harboring chromosome abnormality
Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer of childhood. While many new therapies are causing cure rates to improve, there are still patients with higher relapse rates. This trial includes evaluation of specialized precision medicine. The Jeffrey Pride Foundation was the first donor organization to commit support for this trial, specifically the data management costs that COG will incur as it is activated in European hospitals.
An industry/pharma partner has pledged to cover the entirety of the cost of this project through its estimated completion in 2034. JPF funds previously committed will be diverted to future Integrated Correlative Biology Awards.