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Our Mission: Support novel treatment approaches for melanoma , and help accelerate the drug development process
Stark Reality
The incidence of Melanoma is growing faster than any other cancer in the U.S. and yet, of the hundreds of new drug candidates that are currently in clinical testing, only a handful are specifically targeted for Melanoma. In addition, the FDA has not approved a new drug for Melanoma in over 15 years. It is clear that there is a desperate need to accelerate the development of new medicines to treat Melanoma.
Scientific Advances
With the scientific advances of the last decade, the mechanism of cancer formation in general and the genetics and biology of Melanoma in particular are now much better understood. Melanoma research is now attracting some of the best minds in science, including a number of the country's top scientists working at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCSF who have made significant contributions to this new paradigm. For example, the classification and staging of Melanoma as a disease has recently taken on a new dimension, thanks in large part to development and application of new molecular technologies using novel genomic and biochemical approaches by these scientists.
Our Goal
The Melanoma Therapeutics Foundation is focused on three main activities that support patients, researchers, physicians and help advance new treatments for melanoma.
1. Provide Resources for Patients and Physicians
Melanoma Clinical Trials Gateway - The Melanoma Therapeutics Foundation has developed a continuously refreshed web-based resource for patients, their families, their physicians and other health care professionals. The centerpiece of this user-friendly web portal is a set of tools designed to help readers understand and identify clinical trials that may be the right option for individual patients.
- Understanding Melanoma: The site features comprehensive pages on the types, diagnosis and genetic causes of Melanoma.
- Interactive Forums: Moderated, web-based discussion boards on various Melanoma-related topics and patient-to-patient communication.
- Reliable, Updated Information: The latest information on approved medicines and experimental treatments being developed is available through the MTF portal.
2. Support for Investigators
The Foundation supports innovative basic and clinical research to advance novel treatments for Melanoma. Financial support is provided to investigators at affiliated academic institutions as well as the larger Melanoma research community.
- Melanoma Genetics: MTF supports novel research at University of California San Francisco focused on identifying the genetic causes of Melanoma. Supported researchers have already identified a number of alterations in specific genes present in subsets of human melanoma and MTF supports the continued discovery of additional disease-causing genes. This research holds the promise of identifying new targets for discovery of highly specific treatments for Melanoma.
- Melanoma Cell Bank: Researchers continually use cell lines as models to better understand Melanoma as a disease and as tools to discover new medicines. MTF supports the establishment of a high quality repository of well characterized cell lines for use by the Melanoma research community in their investigations.
- Research Grants: The Foundation provides funding for exceptional proposals from the community that are designed to bring new treatment strategies into clinical trials for Melanoma patients. Proposals are solicited, reviewed by MTF expert panels and funded on an annual basis.
3. Accelerate new drug development through bridging relationships between academia, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
- In 2007, the Melanoma Therapeutics Foundation seeded a biotech start-up which is focused on developing in-licensed drug candidates which show promise for treating specific genetic mutations found in melanoma cells.
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