Supporting Hope
What a synthetic chemist and an X-ray crystallography expert have in common with Bubba Watson
As pro golfer Bubba Watson headed to his crucial playoff in the Masters — one of golf’s four majors — on April 8, City of Hope’s David Horne, Ph.D., watched on TV in nail-biting suspense.
From left, David Horne, Bubba Watson and John Williams at the Northern Trust Open
Horne loves golf. He grew up playing the storied golf courses at Pebble Beach, Calif., and caddied at the Bing Crosby Pro-Am tournament in his younger days. But there’s more to it than that. Horne is chair of the Department of Molecular Medicine at City of Hope, and Watson is helping to make his cancer-fighting ideas a reality.
An ongoing partnership between Watson and the golf apparel company Travis Mathew will send critical dollars to City of Hope to support research by Horne and John C. Williams, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular medicine. Horne and Williams are creating a new way to deliver therapies straight to cancer cells in the body, reducing damage to healthy cells. That could make medicines more effective and cause fewer side effects.
They’re studying and designing meditopes: tiny, customizable cargo that can be loaded onto monoclonal antibodies made in a lab. Monoclonal antibodies can be injected into the body and grab onto to specific spots on cancer cells, delivering their cargo. The scientists aim to get a potential therapy to clinical trials within five years.
The two researchers talked with Watson at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles in February, an inspiring experience they won’t soon forget. Watson’s father died of throat cancer in 2010, so he understands the need for better treatments. He’s also committed to supporting important causes.
“I’ve become a big fan of Bubba’s since meeting him,” Williams says. “I watched him the last day of the Northern Trust Open and at Doral [at the World Golf Championships] on TV.” And despite having to travel during the Masters, he followed Watson’s progress on his cell phone.
Horne was equally thrilled. “I was so excited to see Bubba win the Masters. I’ve never rooted harder for anyone else,” he says. “It was such an exciting finish. He is an amazing golfer and human being.”
The scientists are especially grateful to Travis Mathew and its founding investor, John Kruger. Without their private support, it would be tough to move the research forward. Scientists with high-risk, high-reward projects often struggle to get funding from big pharmaceutical companies and the National Institutes of Health, especially during financial belt-tightening. “We absolutely need this kind of support to develop this novel technology to get it to the clinic,” Williams says.
Nanoparticles get boost from baseball charity
Baseball players are passionate about winning. Scientists are just as passionate about finding answers. One Major League Baseball team has found a way to use their winning drive to help give researchers a competitive edge against cancer.
Through their official charity, ThinkCure, the Los Angeles Dodgers are boosting cancer research at City of Hope and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. And ThinkCure recently announced a new set of grants aimed at knocking cancer out of the park.
Jacob Berlin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at City of Hope, is leading one of the studies that received funding. He’s focusing on building a better cancer treatment using nanoparticles.
Berlin builds nanoparticles — tiny tubes each about 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair — with great care. They have to be small enough to get into cancer cells easily, but big enough to carry a payload, such as chemotherapy, into the malignant cells where it is most effective at killing the cells.
Berlin is building different types of nanoparticles using different kinds of atoms including gold and carbon. His aim: to see which type gets taken in by cancer cells the most. The right type of nanoparticle then can be used as a targeted cancer killer.
Part of his efforts also will go toward tracking these nanoparticles using magnetic resonance imaging, usually called MRI, and other methods. This can help prove that the nanoparticles are actually delivering their cancer-killing payload where it’s needed — inside cancer cells — rather than into healthy tissue. And proving that can help speed the new treatment strategy through government approvals, so patients who can benefit from it can get it.
Father and son cross country by bike in cancer-fighting rite of passage
Photo of Ryan Hornstra, left, and his father Rick
Ryan Hornstra began planning the ride two years ago as a sophomore in high school in Manhattan Beach, Calif. He looked forward to having an adventure the summer after graduating. Inspired by his cousin, Brandon Bullough, who successfully battled testicular cancer at City of Hope, he and his dad called their trip Pedal 4 Hope.
“When we visited Brandon in the hospital, all the nurses and doctors were really nice and helped us understand his situation. We saw City of Hope as more of a family than just a place you go to get treated,” he says.
They started at the Pacific Ocean and wheeled up to 100 miles a day in scorching heat in the Southwest and South, finally ending at the Atlantic Ocean in Cocoa Beach, Fla., in August 2011. The pair documented their journey filled with colorful characters and near-harrowing experiences on their website. By the time they’d returned, they had garnered more than $11,000 in donations for City of Hope. The South Bay newspaper Daily Breeze chronicled their trip in an article, as well.
“It changed my life,” says Hornstra, now a freshman at Washington State University looking forward to entering the school’s athletic training program. “I’m more confident in myself and the things I can do. It was the experience of a lifetime.”
Welcome to our latest ‘Breakthrough’
Welcome to the official City of Hope blog. As we stand on the verge of our institution’s 100th anniversary, we’ll cover the latest groundbreaking research that takes place every day at City of Hope, such as the role environmental chemicals play in breast cancer, a possible vaccine against chronic myeloid leukemia and our research into “super foods” such as blueberries, which have been found to decrease “triple-negative” breast cancer tumor size.
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