Charity Founded by Avon Lake Couple Announces $600,000 in Grants for Pediatric Brain Cancer Research

CLEVELAND, OH - Prayers From Maria, a charity founded by an Avon Lake couple, announced the availability of $600,000 in grants to fund research into a type of brain tumor known as a glioma, which is critically fatal for children. The foundation began in 2010 awarding grants that today have inspired more than $5 million in follow-on funding from the National Institutes for Health and others into research at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, and elsewhere.

“We’ve been blessed by a dedicated and esteemed medical advisory board,” said Ed McNamara, foundation president. “They have helped us identify key research projects that show valuable promise in the fight against children’s brain tumors, so that the hard efforts of our volunteers and contributors can further these studies and attract follow-on funds.”

The vast majority of cancer research dollars go toward fighting adult diseases. Of the National Cancer Institute’s annual $5 billion budget, only 4 percent on average is spent on projects specifically aimed at combating childhood diseases and considerably less for childhood cancers. This woeful lack of government support for children with cancer means that private charities must fill the funding gap. The good news is research funded by the foundation started by Ed and his wife Megan McNamara is inspiring follow-on grants that are beginning to fill this gap.

For instance, a 2014 grant of $250,000 has helped a biomedical engineer at Case School of Engineering, Efstathios Karathanasis, to develop chain-like nanoparticles that can carry drugs across the blood-brain barrier that otherwise keeps standard medicines from reaching the target cancer. These nanochains can then tote bombs of chemotherapy medicine identified by Dr. Jeremy Rich, chairman of the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute. In 2015, their study received a five-year, $2.82 million National Institutes of Health grant to make, in essence, tiny stealth bombs that slip past the brain’s defenses to attack what would otherwise be incurable cancers.

In 2012, their foundation issued a $100,000 grant to Dr. Mark Kieran at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to support his groundbreaking study of young patients with the deadliest of brain tumors, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). He now has detailed knowledge of the molecular makeup of DIPG types, and his findings have spurred the development of two tumor-fighting drugs that are ready for clinical trials.

In 2010, Prayers From Maria granted $100,000 to fund the research of Dr. Bing-Cheng Wang at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. He used it as “seed money” for the compilation of preliminary data and ultimately received $3.3 million in follow-on grants from the National Cancer Institute to continue his brain tumor progression research.

“Philanthropic support is astronomically important, to the point that if families and foundations don’t raise the money, this research wouldn’t happen,” said Dr. Kieran in August to a Boston Globe reporter. He studies some of the most fatal children brain tumors and has funded an entire $2.5 million clinical trial solely through donations.

The foundation’s dedication to growing a movement to end the children’s cancer research funding gap is demonstrated annually at Maria’s Field of Hope, a 50-acre sunflower field in Avon, Ohio, visible from Interstate 90. The field respectfully draws attention to the lack of funding for childhood cancers. It is planted in Maria’s memory and spirit, as a way to love and honor the courageous children now battling cancer and those whom have been lost.

Photo from National Cancer Institute