A W E E K LY P U B L I C AT I O N O F C I T Y O F H O P E

Hope News
VOLUME 2, NUMBER 22 J U LY 1 6 , 2 0 0 7

Supporters gather in Southern California

National Convention celebrates weighty contributions of volunteers nationwide

AmyCantrell.com

City of Hope listed as one of nations top hospitals in cancer and urology
by Shawn Le City of Hope has been named one of Americas Best Hospitals for cancer and urology by the national publication U.S.News & World Report. City of Hope ranked 30th on this years list of top cancer hospitals and 29th for urology. City of Hope is one of only five centers in California one of only two in the Los Angeles area to appear on the cancer list. It is one of six hospitals in California ranked in urology. It is gratifying that the dedication of our health-care professionals, researchers and staff is recognized on a national level by U.S.News & World Report, said Michael
See Rankings page 2

by Steve Kirk

early 800 volunteers from across the country shared their fundraising successes and learned about the latest advances in medical research at City of Hopes 2007 National Convention in Beverly Hills, Calif., in late June.

Held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the threeday convention themed Building a Future of Hope Michael A. Friedman speaks to delegates during a convention dinner. recognized the contributions of auxiliary attended Hope Forum, a series of educational members. It also enabled them to celebrate sessions that focused on sharing fundraising tools their fundraising achievements and hear and strategies, as well as the traditional Roll Call, inspirational messages from City of Hope where chapter members reported on fundraising leaders and patients. efforts since the last convention. Terry R. Peets, The convention began on June 23, when newly elected board chair, addressed conventionCity of Hope President and Chief Executive eers at a dinner gala as well. Officer Michael A. Friedman, M.D., and outgoing board Chair Philip L. Engel welcomed delegates at the opening banquet. The next day, nearly 300 conventioneers traveled to the Duarte, Calif., campus to hear faculty members talk about research and treatments and attend a health fair. City of Hope patients also shared their own stories of hope and healing at the event, called the Day of Discovery. On the conventions final day, participants The entire weekend was truly inspiring, and the dedication and warmth of the people we met was just incredible. We made friends there that we will have for the rest of our lives, said Dick Katz, a member of the Atlanta Chapter who attended the convention along with his wife, Jeanie. My mother had very special feelings for City of Hope. In fact, seven plaques at the
See Convention page 3

New leadership for institutions national board of directors

by Alicia Di Rado and Jennifer Healy Terry R. Peets has taken the helm of City of Hopes board of directors, which also has added three new members. Peets was installed as the boards new chair at City of Hopes National Convention in June. Investment banker Alexander L. Cappello, construction executive Rodney Freeman and investment advisor Ronald J. Silverman joined the board in May. Michael A. Friedman, M.D., City of Hopes president and chief executive officer, said Peets role will be pivotal in guiding the institution toward its strategic goals. Terrys leadership of the board of directors will help City of Hope be more effective in translating science into practical benefits for patients with cancer and other serious diseases, Friedman said. Peets joined the board in 2000 and served as board vice chair for the past three years. He is past president of City of Hopes Southern California Food Industries Circle fundraising group, which has raised more than $100 million for City of Hopes research, treatment and education programs. Peets, whose career leading some of the nations top grocery chains spans more than 30 years, currently serves as chair and director of World Kitchens Inc. and as director for
See Peets page 2

Prominent scientist, surgeon honored at convention

AmyCantrell.com

by Alicia Di Rado City of Hope supporters recently honored two leading faculty members at the institutions National Convention. Chapter members and volunteers recognized Shiuan Chen, Ph.D., director and professor in City of Hopes Department of Surgical Research, and Timothy G. Wilson, M.D., the Pauline and Martin Collins Family Chair in Urology, at a gala dinner on July 25 in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Art Riggs, right, presents a scientific achievement award to Shiuan Chen at the recent City of Hope National Convention.

Chen received the Gallery of Achievement Award for Science for his
See Awards page 4

Researchers open window into tumor suppression

by Elise Lamar Human cells contain an army of proteins whose job is to defend the cells from cancer. Some proteins keep cell growth under control, while others nudge abnormal cells to commit suicide before they can turn cancerous, among other tactics.
Paula Myers

Peets: Trio also joins board

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chromosomes into two new daughter cells when a mother cell divides. Finding RASSF1A and its partners in this cellular neighborhood implies they participate in the process. They then analyzed mice in which the RASSF1A gene had been knocked out, or removed. Interestingly, these mutant mice are predisposed to cancer, a finding reported by Pfeifers group in Cancer Research in 2005. The groups new findings begin to reveal why: Timelapse imaging of cells from these knockout mice showed that cells started dividing correctly, but in many cases never finished dividing. Disrupted cell division is no small problem. It lays the foundation for cancer and fosters a condition researchers call genomic instability, which means the DNA in the nucleus of a cell can go awry. With so many aberrations in a cell, said Pfeifer, it is likely that genes important for cancer prevention such as tumor suppressor genes could be inactivated or genes that promote cancer, known as oncogenes, could become hyperactive. Understanding how and where RASSF1A works could lead to improved treatments and better biomarkers. If one could restore the pathway, then that could be an important strategy for cancer therapy, said Pfeifer. He noted that in cancer, RASSF1A is often shut off through a process called methylation. Diagnostic tests of RASSF1A methylation could be developed for early cancer detection, he said. Added Guo: The tumor suppressors in the hippo pathway may function together to affect cell proliferation, cell death and tumorigenesis. Also contributing to the study were JiingKuan Yee, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Virology, graduate student Limin Liu, Stella Tommasi, Ph.D., assistant research scientist, and Reinhard Dammann, a former postdoctoral researcher in Pfeifers lab now at MartinLuther-University in Halle-Saale, Germany. The National Institutes of Health funded the research.

Interstate Bakeries Inc., Ruiz Foods Inc. and Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. I am honored to serve as chair and to work with the board of directors to ensure City of Hope continues its commitment to scientific excellence and to improving the lives of patients with life-threatening diseases, Peets said. City of Hope board leaders said the three new board members philanthropic spirit and energy make them ideal additions to the board, as well. Alexander Cappello is chair and chief executive officer of the Cappello Capital Corp., a global merchant-banking boutique firm that operates in 40 countries and has completed more than $50 billion in transactions. Cappello has more than 30 years of experience in corporate management, corporate finance, investment banking and merchant banking.
Thomas Brown

City of Hopes Gerd Pfeifer, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Division of Biology, recently got an inside look at one of these tumor suppressor proteins in particular: RASSF1A.

Writing in Current Biology, he showed how RASSF1A blocks cancer by guiding cells successfully Gerd Pfeifer through cell division. Greater knowledge of RASSF1A could lead to better cancer detection and treatments. RASSF1A is one of the most frequently silenced genes in human cancer, said Pfeifer, noting that the RASSF1A gene is often inactivated in lung, breast, pancreas, kidney, liver, prostate and thyroid cancers. We hypothesized that it is a crucial gene that, when silenced, promotes the formation of malignant tumors. Pfeifers group previously showed that the RASSF1A gene is in part of the human genome that may be lost or inactivated in lung cancer. In the latest study, published in April, Pfeifer and lead author Cai Guo a graduate student in the lab found that RASSF1A joins with three other proteins to help cells divide properly. Scientists already knew these three other proteins regulate cell growth and tissue size in the fruit fly Drosophila. And mutations in several of those fruit fly genes cause growths on insect eyes and wings, which explains why geneticists unflatteringly named two of the proteins hippo and warts. When Pfeifers group studied mice, they saw that RASSF1A and its three fellow proteins reside in a structure within a cells nucleus that is called the mitotic spindle. This structure literally drags duplicated

Terry R. Peets speaks to attendees at City of Hopes National Convention.

Rodney Freeman founded Freeman Group Inc. in 1993, and today the company is one of the West Coasts premier construction management and consulting firms. Freeman has been responsible for the construction of more than 500 projects valued at more than $1 billion. He also co-chairs City of Hopes construction and real estate industry committee. Ronald J. Silverman serves as managing director of Bel Air Investment Advisors LLC, an investment advisory firm for high-net-worth families and foundations. Prior to joining Bel Air in 2003, Silverman was a senior managing director at Gerard, Klauer & Mattison, a researchbased investment bank.

Rankings: U.S.News & World Report cites hospital as one of nations best centers for cancer treatment
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A. Friedman, M.D., president and chief executive officer. As we near our century mark of treating patients with serious conditions, our ranking among the countrys top hospitals for cancer and urology reaffirms our commitment to rapidly finding new and better treatments for patients battling cancer and other diseases. City of Hope is one of only 40 institutions in the nation designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). U.S. News based its cancer hospital
2 HOPE NEWS

rankings on several criteria: reputation among board-certified physicians, mortality rate, the number of Medicare patient discharges, the ratio of nurses to patients, NCI and nurse magnet hospital designations, accreditation by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT), the use of specific advanced technology, the availability of certain patient services and other factors. Urology was ranked on similar criteria except the presence of an on-site trauma center was considered instead of NCI designation and FACT accreditation.

Our designation as a top cancer and urology hospital was not earned solely by the advances in medical science that are discovered and developed at City of Hope, but also by the value we place on compassionate care, said Alexandra Levine, M.D., City of Hopes chief medical officer. We consider the needs of our patients in the full sense, and endeavor to provide excellence in all aspects of their treatment and care. Complete rankings of Americas Best Hospitals are available online at www.usnews.com and appear in the July 23 issue of U.S.News & World Report.
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Researchers find mutations occurring in succession across DNA landscape

Paula Myers

by Shawn Le City of Hope researchers discovered that some defects, or mutations, in genetic code happen rapidly and in clusters, raising the possibility that cancer can occur by a more aggressive mechanism than previously thought. Steve Sommer, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular medicine and chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics at City of Hope, and his team dub the phenomenon a mutation shower. Their findings recently were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

bate mutation showers. The mutation showers observed thus far do not have any unusual characteristics that would suggest the genetic signature of any particular trigger. Contrary to what we were expecting, we observed that mutations did not occur singly and were not distributed randomly along the DNA sequence, said Ji-Cheng Wang, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow in Sommers lab and lead author of the paper. It is possible that our observation represents the tip of the iceberg since mutation showers are not easy to detect.

Scientists generally believe that cancer develops after single mutations accumulate Steve Sommer proposes that some cancers may arise through mutation showers. over many years until a cell acquires the The research team observed ability to grow uncontrollably. However, mutations in a strain of mice genetiSommer and his team believe that scattered mutation showers may occur cally engineered to allow easy identification of DNA mutations and in several locations in a short time and in sufficient number to prompt analyzed mutations in several gene segments. When a DNA segment enough genetic defects to produce a cell capable of uncontrolled growth. contained more than one mutation, they noticed that segments in the That cell would be destined to produce a clinically detected tumor years later. Sommer said that additional research is needed to test this hypothesis. We observed that at least 1 percent of mutations are not single mutations as normally thought but are clusters of multiple mutations, said Sommer. Some of the mechanisms that could cause a mutation shower could also generate scattered showers, and this, which remains to be shown in future experiments, can make it possible for cancer to occur in an instant. Sommers team observed mutation showers in mice on standard diets and not exposed to agents known to cause mutations, which leads them to believe mutation showers may occur by endogenous processes that is, from within. It is not yet known whether any environmental factors such as cigarette smoke, the suns ultraviolet rays or diet might cause or exacer-

neighborhood were likely to contain additional mutations. The research team is continuing their investigation of mutation showers and their possible role in cancer. The ultimate significance of the current findings remains to be determined, said Sommer. As with any new finding, it is important to study mutation showers in different systems and organisms. The research team included these members: Kelly D. Gonzalez, genetic counselor; William A. Scaringe, senior biomedical informatics specialist; Kimberly Tsai, research associate; Ning Liu, postdoctoral research fellow; Dongqing Gu, bioinformatics specialist; Wenyan Li, research associate; and Kathleen A. Hill, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Biology, The University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Convention: Event inspires many

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medical center are dedicated to her and my father, so I was very excited about visiting before we even arrived. The pair were so motivated by their experiences that they committed to a $100,000 donation for City of Hope during the weekend, and now are working to boost membership in their chapter. The convention experience also invigorated longtime volunteer Don Hoffman, who hosted Sunday evenings events with volunteer Pat Perrott. The duo, who serve on City of Hopes Ambassador Leadership Council (ALC), cohosted the Day of Discovery, as well. As a member of the ALC, I have spent the last two years helping to plan this convention with my fellow council members, Hoffman said. In speaking with many of the delegates I met there, it seems that our hard work resulted in a wonderful and educational time for all of them. Hoffmans father, Irving, served as president of the apparel industry support group the Merchants Club from 1962 to 1963. Don Hoffman also chairs the think tank of the Board of Governors, of which he is a member, and plays a vital role on the City of Hope National Medical Center board of directors. Alan Levey, senior vice president of development, was gratified by attendees feedback. Said Levey: We are pleased that the delegates who attended convention found it to be such a worthwhile experience.
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Popular actor lends personal story and star power to City of Hopes fight against cancer
by Andrew Ishii Actor Kiefer Sutherland best known for his role as agent Jack Bauer on FOXs hit show 24 recently recorded promotional audio and video spots in support of City of Hope. In the public service announcements, or PSAs, the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning actor describes the advanced care and research available at the institution. found City of Hope, where she was treated. The Russos now live free of cancer and are proud parents something they were told they could never be. After the interview aired, City of Hope reached out to Bob Cook, president of FOX Television and a City of Hope board member, to contact Sutherland and solicit his support in creating a PSA. Sutherland agreed. With substantial support from Cook and FOX TV, all production for the PSA was donated, including the crew, use of the set of 24, where the spot was recorded, and post-production services.

Before STAR 98.7 FMs Lounge for Life concert last year, which benefited City of Hope, Sutherland was Actor Kiefer Sutherland talks interviewed on the radio about City of Hope in a public stations morning show, where service announcement. Both Christina and I were he shared a personal story very moved by the production about two of his closest and wish that the message spreads hope to friends, Chip and Christina Russo. Both were those who need it most, said Chip Russo. diagnosed with cancer in their 20s. Christina Russo developed an aggressive form of musculoskeletal cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. The pair sought opinions at numerous medical institutions, where they received a grim prognosis. Eventually, they The PSAs will begin airing in August through a variety of outlets, including Clear Channel radio and Web, Movie Tunes intheater media, and television and Web placement provided by FOX.

HOPE NEWS

City of Hope in the News

USA Today featured an article on July 5 about singer Princes new perfume, called 3121, and noted that part of the scents first day of sales will benefit City of Hope and other organizations. Singer Carrie Underwoods participation in the 17th Annual City of Hope Celebrity Softball Challenge in Nashville was featured in the June 25 issues of OK! and Life & Style Weekly magazines. The TV Guide Channel aired a segment on June 28 highlighting Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus upcoming concert tour, with a portion of ticket sales benefiting City of Hope. The Cancer Letters July 6 issue featured news briefs on Mark Kirschbaum, M.D., and Yun Yen, M.D., Ph.D., as investigators of a clinical trial to treat acute leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome. A National Cancer Institute and National Human Genome Research Institute grant to Gerd Pfeifer, Ph.D., also was featured.

Thomas Brown

Miley makes memories for patients

Teen pop music and television star Miley Cyrus, left, and her father, singer and actor Billy Ray Cyrus, right, pose for photos with City of Hope patient Paul Alindog. The pair recently visited the pediatric wing at City of Hope Helford Clinical Research Hospital, where children and teenagers eagerly asked for autographs. Miley Cyrus plays the lead role in the popular TV program Hannah Montana, which also features Billy Ray Cyrus as her onscreen dad. The teen star will launch her first North American concert tour this fall and $1 from each ticket sold will be donated to City of Hope. Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records recently released a double CD featuring music from the show as well as her own solo performances.

Calendar of Events
To learn about more City of Hope events, visit www.cityofhope.org/calendar.

Awards: Faculty members recognized for professional achievements

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contributions to breast cancer research, while Wilson garnered the Gallery of Achievement Award for Medicine for his outstanding work in urologic oncology.

Markie Ramirez

aromatase-blocking drugs. Chens group seeks to understand how these tumor cells grow resistant, so scientists can find ways to get around cancers defenses. On the medical side, Wilson has directed the Department of Urology & Urologic Oncology since 1992. Under his direction , the department has developed into a national leader. Wilson, who also directs the Prostate Cancer Program, is a recognized expert in roboticassisted laparoscopic prostatectomy. He is one of the top surgeons worldwide in volume of robotic prostatectomies performed. Working with other physicians and scientists, he also has participated in translational research that recently was awarded a National Institutes of Health research grant to improve techniques for diagnosing prostate cancer.

Tuesday, July 24 4 to 5 p.m. Platt 3 Conference Room

Seminar. Targeting Topoisomerase II Isozyme Function in Human Myeloid Leukemia, Ram Ganapathi Info: Charlie Bassford, ext. 65707

6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Helford Hospital Main Lobby

Hands on Harps concert and workshop Info: Jeanne Lawrence, ext. 63971

Chen studies a natural enzyme in the Timothy Wilson body called aromatase. Blocking aromatase is an important way to control estrogen levels among postmenopausal women. Most postmenopausal women with breast cancer have tumors that depend on estrogen to grow. However, tumors can become resistant to treatment and learn to grow in the presence of

Friday, July 27 3 to 4 p.m. Platt 3 Conference Room

Lecture. Pharmacogenetics of Adverse Effects of ALL Therapy, Mary Relling, St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn. Info: Gina Ceniceros, ext. 67321
Deadline for calendar submissions is noon on the Tuesday preceding publication. Three weeks advance notice is recommended. Timely submission does not guarantee items will be printed. Send calendar items to HopeNews@coh.org, or fax to Lorena Avila, Communications, at 626-930-5363. Submissions must include day, date, time, title, speaker first and last names and affiliation (if applicable), location and contact information (contact name, phone and/or e-mail).
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Next Issue: July 30

Alicia Di Rado
Editor NON-PROFIT ORG US POSTAGE

Steve Kirk
Associate Editor

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Contributors: Lorena Avila, Laurie Bellman, Jennifer Healy, Randy Hui, Andrew Ishii, Elise Lamar, Shawn Le, Chung So

Phone: 626-256-4673, ext. 62356 Fax: 626-301-8462 E-mail: HopeNews@coh.org

Hope News is written and produced by the Communications Group. Copies are distributed throughout the City of Hope campus. Permission to reprint articles with attribution is freely given.