MACC Fund Awards 9 Grants

The Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer (MACC) Fund has funded each of nine separate grant requests made by the Departments of Pediatrics and Human Oncology. This marks the 40th year of the MACC Fund, and awards from this year have now brought the overall total of contributions to greater than $60 million to childhood cancer research here in Wisconsin. The grants will fund each project for $100,000 over the next two years. Congratulations to all of the researchers involved!

  • Christian Capitini, MD – “Improving Graft-Versus-Leukemia Effects of Ex Vivo Activated NK Cells through JAK/STAT Blockade”
  • Ken DeSantes, MD – “Support for Clinical Research Infrastructure”
  • Ken DeSantes, MD – “Treatment of Relapsed or Refractory Neuroblastoma with Ex-Vivo Activated and Expanded Haploindentical NK Cells and Hu14.18-IL2”
  • Jacquelyn Hank, PhD – “Monitoring of Immune Network Responses in Pediatric Neuroblastoma Patients Treated with Anti-GD2 Immunotherapy”
  • Inga Hofmann, MD (with Emery Bresnick, PhD) – “Prognostic Markers and Therapeutic Targets in GATA2-Related Myelodysplastic Syndromes and Leukemia”
  • Mario Otto, MD, PhD -“Targeted Molecular Radiotherapy to Improve the Outcomes in Children with Malignant Brain Tumors”
  • Mario Otto, MD, PhD (with Dana Baiu PhD)- “Strategies for Improving Recovery of Immune Function following TCRab-depleted Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation”
  • Alexander Rakhmilevich, MD, PhD – “Combining Innate and Adaptive Immune Activation for Treatment of Experimental Neuroblastoma”
  • Paul Sondel, MD, PhD (with Amy Erbe Gurel, PhD) – “Determining the Influence of KIR/KIR-ligand Genotypes in the Outcome of High-Risk Neuroblastoma Patients Following Anti-GD2 Based Immunotherapy”