We are excited to share that the money raised during that 2017 Fastpitch Cares Tournament funded the Plate Reader for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital – Pediatric Hematology and Oncology program and that it has already gone to great use! Several of the doctors and researchers identified this piece of equipment based on its ability to help in a variety of ways including:
- Discovering the molecular pathways behind rapid growth cancers
- Developing new, more effective and selective targeted cancer therapies
- Identifying abnormal blood flow in blood vessels in patients with sickle cell disease
- Finding new treatments for childhood lymphoid leukemia
- Detecting very low levels of myeloid leukemia before it recurs in affected patients
We received a special note of gratitude from Monika Davare, PhD, Assistant Professor at Doernbecher that we’d like to share with you.
The plate reader has been a very popular item on the whole floor. Four laboratories, including mine, have been using it on a near daily basis. The other laboratories including the Kurre lab that works on childhood leukemia and bone marrow failure disorder; the Cho lab that works on pediatric brain tumors, the Grompe lab that works also on bone marrow failure disorders, as well as gene therapy, and the Fleming lab that works on leukemia as well as gene therapy. On the whole, for my lab specifically, having the plate reader right there has improved our efficiency by at least 10-fold. We are using it for cancer drug discover to identify new compounds for pediatric as well as adult cancers, and for new basic science discoveries to fill gaps in knowledge about some cancer causing genes that our lab specializes in studying. I cannot emphasize how critical this equipment is for us!! It saves time, it saves money, and because we are not walking across campus to use one in another lab, people are more motivated to run experiments. This improves overall efficiency and accelerates our discovery process. As outlined above, the impact of this equipment is much wider than we had even previously imagined, as four other big labs are using the equipment to advance their science as well. We are immensely grateful for all the hard work the FastPitch Cares team and volunteers do to allow us to have this much-needed piece of capital equipment in the laboratory at this time of scarce federal funding.
Thank you!” ~Monica Davare, PhD
Your generous contribution to the Fastpitch Cares Softball Tournament in September 2017 made this happen and we cannot thank you enough. We hope that you understand that your contribution is having a direct and positive impact on the work being done at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. The 2018 Fastpitch Cares Tournament is taking place September 8-9. We are currently receiving and reviewing requests from Doernbecher Children’s Hospital for additional needed equipment so that we can continue this tradition of giving in important and impactful ways.
Thank you again! You made it possible. Together we were able to make a difference in the lives of children facing severe illness.
