Cristina Antonescu, M.D.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: Link Physician, Anatomical Pathology GIST Research: Soft Tissue Sarcoma, GIST

Why to donate to GCRF for GIST research?   Patient, relative, neighbor or friend to a GIST survivor – donating will bring you closer to the cause and allow you to take an active role in fighting against this disease    Donations are important, but as important is participating and planning the fundraising events, in which information about how this rare disease is diagnosed and treated is spread forward   The expert panel of scientific adviser committee of GCRF is actively involved in consulting with the GCRF leadership on the Institutions and types of research projects that merit being awarded    If you are interested in a specific area of GIST research, such as imatinib-resistance, pediatric GIST, etc, you can specifically contribute in those areas and select the centers that lead those fields of research. GCRF is happy to accommodate and direct your donations to a specific research area of interest where you think progress needs to be made faster.   The GIST research teams awarded by GCRF have their doors open to the contributors and patients and organize annual open forums to discuss the new directions headed with the GCRF donations. Clinical experts usually join these meetings and answer in detail patients' questions. Try to attend one this year, organized to an Institution near you.   GCRF is not the only GIST patient organization that coordinates fundraising to sponsor cutting edge research. However, for GCRF this is their primary goal and only mission. By working so close with the top GIST research teams in the US, GCRF's pulse is on the recent scientific advancements and help both the established and the junior investigators to achieve their proposed aims in GIST research.     Institutions and researches that have been awarded research grants: -         Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (Cristina Antonescu)  -         Fox Chase -         Oregon Health Science University (Chris Corless, Michael Hienrich) -         Brigham &Women Hospital/ Dana Farber (Jonathan Fletcher) -         Pittsburgh University (Anette Duensing)   Research Projects funded: -         Mechanisms of imatinib resistance in GIST -         In vitro screening of novel kinase inhibitors on genetically engineered cell lines expressing activating KIT mutations -         Mining of candidate therapeutic targets by gene expression arrays in wild type and pediatric GIST   Donations can be used to cover: -         lab reagents and lab equipment for detection of KIT/PDGFRA mutations -         costs of microchip technology, sequencing facility, flow cytometry. -         salary support for research technician, research associate, research fellow