This year, our Fund-A-Need effort will be dedicated to immunotherapy research, and we are delighted to announce that the V Foundation for Cancer Research has partnered with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) to advance this research.

The V Foundation will co-fund with PICI up to four Parker Bridge Fellows grants for early career researchers, which are three years in duration. The goal is to raise $2.8 million at the Wine Celebration to support this program. This program was one of PICI’s first initiatives, and the grants empower the most ambitious early career researchers to help transform how immunotherapy can benefit cancer patients. More collaboration means more dollars raised, more research funded and more momentum towards Victory Over Cancer®!

To read more about this incredible partnership, please visit here.

Help Us Fund Lifesaving Research Now

01. APPROACH

T Cell Approaches Cancer Cell

Immunotherapy harnesses the power of the immune system and trains it to recognize cancer cells and eliminates them- forever! It is a hope in the fight against cancer.

  • Treatments like chemotherapy attack the cancer, while immunotherapy trains the body to help find and attack the cancer.

  • Immunotherapy treatments can be used in many different types of cancer in children and adults. It may be used by itself or in conjunction with other therapies.

  • Immunotherapy shows promise as a cancer treatment, but more work is needed to learn: which cancer patients would benefit the most, how we can keep the immune system from overreacting and how some cancers are learning to hide from the immune system.

02. ATTACK

T Cell Attacks Cancer Cell

This can be done in a couple ways:

  • Stimulating, or boosting, the natural defenses of your immune system so it works harder or smarter to find and attack cancer cells.

  • Making substances in a lab that are just like immune system components and using them to help restore or improve how your immune system works to find and attack cancer cells.

03. DESTROY

Cancer Cell Destroyed

In the last few decades, immunotherapy has become an important part of treating some types of cancer.

  • Immunotherapy treatments are being tested and approved, and new ways of working with the immune system are being discovered at a very fast pace.

  • The immune system has a tougher time targeting cancer cells, though. This is because cancer starts when normal, healthy cells become changed or altered and start to grow out of control. Because cancer cells actually start in normal cells, the immune system does not always recognize them as foreign.

  • To overcome this, researchers have found ways to help the immune system recognize cancer cells and strengthen its response so that it will destroy them.