Sontag Foundation Awards $1 million for Brain Cancer Research
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (October 17, 2006) - The Sontag Foundation announced today that it has selected two recipients for its 2006 Distinguished Scientist Award. Each award carries with it a research grant totaling $500,000 over a three-year period to support medical research. The awards were presented to the following scientists: James E. Bear, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Santosh Kesari, M.D., Ph.D., an Associate Neurologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Instructor in the Departments of Neurology and Cancer Biology at Harvard Medical School.
Through the Distinguished Scientist Awards, The Sontag Foundation recognizes and supports the work of outstanding early career scientists whose research has the potential to generate new knowledge relating to causes, cures or treatment of brain tumors. Dr. Kesari will utilize his research award to identify and validate genes along a novel signaling axis. The identified genes may account for Gliobalstomas' resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The ultimate goal is the development of more effective therapies for this lethal brain cancer. Dr. Bear's research will focus on the role two genes may have in the spread of astrocytomas, the most common type of primary brain tumors.
The Sontag Foundation, headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, is a private foundation which funds medical research in the fields of brain cancer and rheumatoid arthritis on a national level and also awards grants to fund programs meeting various social and educational needs of individuals living in Northeast Florida. In the past 4 years the Sontag Foundation has awarded over $12 million in grants. For additional information, go to www.sontagfoundation.org.
Contact:
Kay W. Verble
Executive Director
The Sontag Foundation
904-273-8755
904-273-8745
info[at]sontagfoundation.org
