Dear Friends,

With virtually no family being spared by this disease, the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF)'s goal is simple: overcome the cancer problem by creating a collaborative team of world-class scientists, the Institute Without Walls, to translate cancer research discoveries from the bench to the clinic. Our Foundation focuses on uncovering genetic causes of cancer and delivering specifically tailored minimally toxic treatments to patients. We dedicate ourselves to transforming cancer into a chronic disease and perhaps one day even preventing its occurrence by bridging the gap between lab science and the patient and from remission to cure.

SWCRF "Institute Without Walls" Past Accomplishments

• $55+ million has been invested by SWCRF in our 30 year history
• Created an Institute Without Walls 25 years ago beginning with a collaboration between the Foundation's Laboratory at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Shanghai Institute of Hematology, RuiJin Hospital, Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This collaboration led to trailblazing clinical trials in China to successfully treat a lethal malignancy, acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), and send 90% of these patients into 5-year cure.
• Conducted laboratory research at Dartmouth that helped develop an active phase I trial that targets lung cancer, the most common lethal malignancy for men and women. Confirmatory trials are now underway at Mount Sinai and Dartmouth with encouraging results for lung cancer patients.
• Secured a new patent which discovered a novel use of a new class of compounds for non-toxic therapy for leukemia patients.
• Recruited a distinguished team of world-class scientists, spanning institutions throughout the United States and including a Nobel Laureate, to devise a cutting-edge immunotherapy using gene therapy to combat metastatic melanoma. When proven successful in clinical trials, this team's efforts will have applications far beyond even this devastating cancer. By reprogramming the immune system, other diseases such as AIDS or malaria could also be targeted by this approach.
• Devised an innovative tumor dormancy program that brings a global team together to advance this exciting conceptual breakthrough at the stem cell level, which establishes a novel framework to convert cancers into chronic diseases.
• Isolating and charactizing the breast, pancreas, and brain stem cell.
• Engineered new animal models that mimic human breast, brain, prostate, lung and blood malignancies and can be used to rapidly confirm anti-cancer drug activities before moving into clinical trials.
• Created the most extensive program in the USA in developing gene-correcting treatments for blood malignancies.

In addition to our major site at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, we are currently funding established investigators from major institutions in the United States, China, Europe, Canada and Israel that not only demonstrate commitment to the development of cancer selective therapies but also enthusiastically embrace collaboration. Currently, we have 50 investigators organized into programs in specific disease entities as outlined in the diagram. Continued support is dependent on annual favorable review from our external, independent Scientific Advisory Committee and demonstration of collaboration.

Our goal by 2010 is to have on-going support for 100 investigators. The SWCRF research expenditure is $5.8 million for fiscal year 2006-07. We project that the total programmatic impact of collaborative research in the Institute to be $25 million or a return of five-fold on the Foundation's investment by the leverage of other sources of funding our grants generate.

87% of every dollar raised by the public goes directly to cancer research. Charity Navigator, America's leading charity evaluator, has awarded SWCRF its highest four-star rating for three consecutive years from 2004 through 2006. Less than 10% of the charities evaluated by Charity Navigator have received this rating for three successive evaluation periods. We invite you to review the rankings at www.charitynavigator.org.

The future looks bright. In November 2006, SWCRF awarded the David T. Workman Memorial Award to the two NIH scientists who helped develop the Humanpapilloma Virus vaccine against cervical cancer, the first cancer vaccine of the 21st century, which will save millions of women and girls worldwide.

Our annual events are a demonstration of the energy, dedication and personal investment of the leadership of the Foundation and you, our committed supporters. Please help SWCRF in our efforts to generate the research that will increase the number of cancer survivors, prevent the disease and ultimately eliminate it from our lives. The scientists who work toward that goal appreciate your trust and support.

Sincerely,

Samuel Waxman, M.D.
Scientific Director
Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation
Albert A. and Vera G. List Professor of Medicine
Mount Sinai School of Medicine