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Help came from 800 miles away.

Joe and Sally Jenkins were already longtime supporters of VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center when fate brought them face-to-face with the true impact of their philanthropic endeavors.

For 25 years, cancer research took center stage in their charitable giving. Joe watched his brother battle cancer years ago, and when opportunities arose to give, the Jenkins family — who split their time between Richmond, Virginia, and Florida — chose Massey.

When Joe took a fall during their travels south a few years ago, a chest X-ray to check his injuries revealed a small black dot on his lung. He sent those X-rays north, where Massey’s expert team of physicians diagnosed him with early-stage lung cancer and initiated a treatment plan that brought Joe back to Richmond.

Today, Joe proudly says he is cancer-free.

“By the time many of these cancers are discovered, like lung cancer, it’s often too late to treat them,” Sally said.

Early prevention saves lives, and the couple are grateful Massey could treat Joe before the cancer metastasized.

Their experience – and the lingering question of ‘what if the cancer had not been found’ – continues to fuel their desire to give in support of Massey’s research that aims to discover and treat cancer in its earliest stages.

“We’re interested in supporting research that helps with early detection,” Sally said. “Massey is a national leader in cancer care and we’re living examples of that.”

Research drives scientific progress, and philanthropy drives research. Scientific data from successful pilot projects, like those supported by the Jenkins family, is often the key component in securing grant funding that allows the project to progress to the next stages of research.

At Massey and throughout the MCV Campus at VCU, pilot projects are often made possible by private philanthropy.

Typically ranging from $20,000 to $50,000 per year, pilot grants allow researchers and physicians a chance to collect “proof of concept” data that they can then use to solicit substantial funding from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense, the American Heart Association and other national organizations.

“As a result of pilot grants, discoveries are translated into clinical trials and new treatments in an accelerated timeframe, maximizing the investment and impact of the initial private support,” said Margaret Ann Bollmeier, president and CEO of the MCV Foundation.

The foundation manages the philanthropic gifts made by donors to ensure that VCU remains at the forefront of excellence and innovation in patient care, education and research.

“If someone has a great idea, but no funding, it will only remain a great idea,” said Fadi N. Salloum, Ph.D., member of the Cancer Prevention and Control research program at Massey and associate chair for research in the Department of Internal Medicine who holds the Natalie N. and John R. Congdon Sr. Endowed Chair at the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center. “Without pilot funding, scientists may never have the opportunity to grow that research.”

Pilot grants are small. The impact is huge.

According to Salloum, pilot grant funding leading to major grant awards – including NIH RO1 grants given to independent research projects that demonstrate strong preliminary and feasibility data – has shown an excellent return on investment of $75 to $1 for VCU’s Department of Internal Medicine.

“It’s difficult to measure the enormous value that pilot grants hold for VCU researchers and physicians,” says Patricia J. Sime, M.D., the William Branch Porter Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. “Research is expensive, and to make investments for the future we have to fund the research. Pilot grants give individuals the time and resources needed to test innovative ideas, acting as catalysts to help advance the science and help provide cures for tomorrow.”

Bethany L. Denlinger, M.D., is not only a noninvasive cardiologist on faculty with Pauley. She also believes in advancing the good work of her colleagues and supports their research by giving to the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center Pilot Grants Program.

“Research is an important part of the medical field, especially at an academic medical center,” Denlinger said. “For the care to be complete, it’s important for VCU to be evolving and changing.

“I take care of one person at a time,” Denlinger added, “but research helps entire future generations.”

Can what you eat protect your heart during chemotherapy?

Moriah Bellissimo Myers, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher and registered dietitian, was awarded a VCU Health Pauley Heart Center pilot grant to explore heart-healthy nutritional therapies for women going through breast cancer treatments. (Photo by Daniel Sangjib Min, MCV Foundation)

Women today are beating breast cancer at remarkable rates — only to suffer cardiovascular issues later in life.

But MCV Campus researchers, led by Massey postdoctoral researcher Moriah Bellissimo Myers, Ph.D., are using lipids to study cardiovascular health to help begin developing nutritional therapies that could unlock long-term vitality and ward off those potential heart problems.

Myers, a registered dietitian, was awarded a VCU Health Pauley Heart Center pilot grant earlier this year for a project that is characterizing plasma fatty acids during breast cancer treatment. Specifically, she will use lipidomics to analyze fatty acids in the blood of 200 women who are part of Pauley’s UPBEAT trial — a national study of cardiovascular decline following breast cancer treatment — to investigate changes in lipid metabolites during breast cancer treatment.

“It’s a really cool time in cardio-oncology research because the field is shifting from short-term, acute care to long-term care,” said Bellissimo Myers, whose mentors include cardiologists and basic scientists at Pauley and Massey, as well as behavioral scientists at VCU.

“We’ve had phenomenal advancements in the detection and treatment of breast cancer, so survival rates for most stages are approaching 90% or more,” she explained. “But now that women are living longer post-cancer, they’re experiencing accelerated cardiovascular disease.”

Symptoms associated with cardiovascular decline include progressive fatigue and decline in exercise capacity and heart functions.

Women who have opted into this national study range from ages 18 to 85. Their blood was studied at two different intervals, the first prior to their cancer treatments and the second three months into treatment. Bellissimo Myers is looking at what happens to lipids during the treatments, which include chemotherapy, hormone therapies or a combination of both.

The biomarkers in the blood offer precise, objective information that does not rely on participants’ recall compared to dietary history questionnaires.

Samples from around the country are analyzed at VCU Health. Bellissimo Myers says her ultimate goal is to develop dietary therapies based on the results. About the time she received the Pauley pilot grant, she also received a $649,000 grant from the Komen Foundation to advance her research.

“Once you make it through treatment, we want to make sure you’re thriving,” she said, adding that she wants women to feel empowered by having tools they can incorporate into their daily lives that will boost their heart health.

“What I love about this is it’s all patient-oriented,” she said. “We want to give them choices about what they can eat or how they can exercise to improve their health.”

Bellissimo Myers says she is thankful to receive a pilot grant, which she plans to use as a springboard to apply for additional funding from external sources like the NIH. Pauley’s philanthropically supported pilot grant program raises $100,000 annually to support two to four investigators.

“To receive that grant funding validated years of work, and it showed me that my institution sees the need and the value in the research I want to conduct — and that it’s worth investing in,” she said. “It instilled confidence in me and my vision for how I can help people, and it’s also the first step in an area of research that can truly impact people’s lives.”

Could one gene mutation be the breakthrough in understanding lung cancer?

Larisa Litovchick, M.D., Ph.D., studies a multi-protein complex mutation that could impact cancer cell growth and have broad implications for cancer drug resistance mechanisms. (Photo by Daniel Sangjib Min, MCV Foundation)

It is called the DREAM complex, but its functions are anything but whimsical.

Within the human body and in other organisms, DREAM refers to a multi-protein complex that binds to DNA and regulates cell cycle processes, including cell division. But Massey researchers have also connected the DREAM complex to oncogenesis, the process by which normal cells turn cancerous and escape the tumor suppressive mechanisms, leading to cancer growth.

Larisa Litovchick, M.D., Ph.D., a member of Massey’s Cancer Biology research program and associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, received a pilot grant through the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center Innovation Pilot Award to support preclinical studies. Promising results from the pilot research have already demonstrated how introducing critical mutations within cells could prohibit the DREAM complex from forming.

“This mutation in one gene results in a dramatic change,” Litovchick said. The research has particular application for lung cancer, which affects roughly 6% of men and women. Of those, only about 22% live five or more years after diagnosis.

Litovchick says the research model could have translational implications as well as usefulness in studying and potentially overcoming cancer drug resistance.

She’s grateful for pilot grants, and especially for the alumni and community members who recognize their value and support them.

“Pilot grants are really important to be able to test early hypotheses,” Litovchick said. “NIH grants are very competitive, and require a lot of preliminary data, so you need to start with something. Pilot grants are critical in promoting innovation.”

This was repurposed from an article originally published by the VCU School of Medicine.

Written by: Holly Prestidge