ONE MILLION DOLLARS FOR RESEARCH, AND 2013 GRANT RECIPIENTS!

We are overjoyed to announce today that this year the PMP Research Foundation achieved our goal of raising ONE MILLION DOLLARS for PMP research in 5 years!

This was the dream of our founder, Lisa Luciano, when she started the PMP Research Foundation five years ago. We cannot think of a better way to honor her memory than by achieving this milestone. Thanks to each and every one of our supporters who made this possible! With your consistent support we have not only reached our five year fundraising goal, but we have been able to fund $100,000 or more in significant research grants toward curing PMP each year – and we intend to do the same for another 5 years and beyond.

Speaking of grants, we are pleased to announce the recipients of our 2013 PMP Research Grant Program.

The first recipient is a familiar one, as he is a former PMP Research Grant recipient and is also a member of the PMPRF Professional Advisory Board. Congratulations to Dr. Andrew Lowy, of the Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, who will receive a $50,000 grant for his study “Targeting Core Signaling Networks in Mucinous Adenocarcinoma of the Appendix.” This grant is being awarded in memory of our founder and former president, Lisa Luciano.

In a first for our five-year research grant program, there was a tie between two proposed studies and the two researchers happen to belong to the same institution. Therefore, we have decided that the two researchers will share the $50,000 research grant between them. Congratulations to Creighton University and its TWO $25,000 grant recipients:

“Carcinoembryonic Antigen – A Pro-Angiogenic Factor in Pseudomyxoma Peritonei – is a Potential Target for Therapy,” Principal Investigator: Peter Thomas, Ph.D. Surgery and Biomedical Sciences; and

“PMP: Biologic Foundations for New Treatment Options,” Principal Investigator: Venkatesh Govindarajan, Ph.D. Department of Surgery.

These two grants are being awarded in memory of founding PMPRF board member and former treasurer, Michael Dvorsky.

We are so proud to honor Lisa and Mike on this day when we can also announce that we achieved one of our primary goals as an organization. We could not have reached this milestone without the hard work and dedication that Lisa and Mike gave to PMPRF from the very beginning. While we miss them both dearly, their spirit lives on in the work we do and we hope we will continue to honor them both and make them proud as we pursue our mission to find a cure for every patient suffering from pseudomyxoma peritonei and other peritoneal surface malignancies.