Download Grant Application Guidelines
Since our formation in September 2009, The Ishan Gala Foundation has had huge success raising over $85,000 through private donations and fundraiser events. These precious dollars are going towards vital research to help find less toxic ways to treat the children with this life threatening disease. Dr. Giselle Sholler has been a pivotal part of the foundation serving as part of our medical board and has devoted countless hours of effort perfecting treatments and hopefully soon find a cure for Neuroblastoma. It takes around $100,000 to get a phase one clinical trial started and it costs about $10,000 to get one child into a pilot study.Dr. Sholler's research focuses on new therapies for neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma. These neuronal tumors continue to be therapeutic challenges in pediatrics. Dr. Sholler has shown that Nifurtimox increases oxidative stress in neuroblastoma and induces cell death and decreases tumor size in xenograft models of neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma. Nifurtimox also decreases AKT phosphorylation increasing the cells sensitivity to chemotherapy. She is presently studying the mechanism of this drug, drugs effecting metabolic regulation and oxidative stress, and determining the best drugs to use in combination.
Dr. Sholler has completed a Phase I trial of nifurtimox. She has opened and is currently enrolling in a Phase II trial of nifurtimox in combination with cytoxan and topotecan for relapsed neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma patients. She will be opening this trial at other sites in collaboration with Dr. Roberts at Children's San Diego, Dr. Ferguson at St. Louis University, Dr. Zage at MD Anderson Houston, and Dr. Eslin at MD Anderson Orlando. Within this consortium she hopes to bring new therapies through research to children with relapsed neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.
Dr. Sholler's lab is working in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Bond at the University of Vermont to understand the genomic differences within patients neuroblastoma cells. Understanding the specific biological profiles of patients neuroblastoma will lead to better understanding of the most effective treatment.
The Ishan Gala Foundation currently supports the following Cancer Research:
Personalized Medicine
Tumor samples from relapsed children are being developed into cell lines which we can use to test the effectiveness of agents, RNA expression analysis, morpoproteomics, and flow cytometry. These tumors have been transplanted into mice.
Collaboration between world-class pediatric cancer programs at University of Vermont, Cornell-Weill, University of Texas, Houston, University of Michigan, Memorial Sloan-Kettering.
Fast-Tracked Medicine
Collaboration between world-class pediatric cancer programs at University of Vermont, University of Texas, Houston, University of Michigan, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, University of Iowa, Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego, MD Anderson (Houston), MD Anderson (Orlando, Florida), University of Wisconsin, St. Louis, South Carolina (College of Charleston).
Development of clinical trials to with kid-friendly lower-toxicity profiles and with innovative agents and combinations of agents.
Research into off-the-shelf, already FDA-approved drugs that have strong anti-cancer effects to determine if they can help kids with neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.
- Vetting of ground-breaking pharmaceutical agents for the effectiveness in neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.
Check out this video from Dr. Giselle Sholler at The University of Vermont to see what your donations to the Ishan Gala Foundation help support.
