A Medical Device Daily

Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), the Entertainment Industry Foundation's (EIF; Los Angeles) charitable initiative supporting groundbreaking research aimed at getting new cancer treatments to patients in an accelerated timeframe, has reached a significant milestone, awarding the first round of three-year grants – that total $73.6 million – to five multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional research "dream teams."

The majority of these funds were raised in connection with an SU2C telecast in September 2008 that aired simultaneously on the ABC, CBS and NBC networks.

This announcement comes on the one-year anniversary of the launch of Stand Up To Cancer. SU2C's next round of funding – Innovative Research Grants for individual investigators – will be announced later this year.

"Recent advancements in basic science and in technologies have placed us on the cusp of important discoveries that can revolutionize the fight against cancer," said Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp, PhD, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge). "SU2C aims to capitalize on that progress and is pushing it forward at what will be an extraordinarily quick pace. The Dream Teams bring together leading laboratory scientists and physicians, collaborating in ways that are unprecedented with a laser-like focus on research that has enormous potential to help patients and save lives. The Stand Up To Cancer model could very well change the face of cancer."