National Pediatric Cancer Foundation Shines Light on Need for Research

David Frazer likes to talk about the logo for the Sunshine Project. It is an orange and yellow sun with spikes that make it look like it is rising upward. And in fact, at its very core, the Sunshine Project is a beacon of light for pediatric cancer patients and their families as they fight a disease that is the leading cause of death among children.

"It is hope, inspiration, warmth, comfort, resolve," said Frazer in a staccato rhythm, imparting just how important these qualities can be when you’re fighting a disease that will claim nearly 2,000 young lives this year. Frazer is CEO of the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation (NPCF), which has provided funding to Moffitt for the last 13 years to coordinate the Sunshine Project, a research network of 30 cancer centers and pediatric hospitals across the United States.

As the Moffitt Cancer Center Foundation gives thanks for the many thousands of donors who support patient care, research and educational efforts at Moffitt each year, the NPCF is unique in that the Sunshine Project allows Moffitt to conduct a lot of work behind the scenes to improve pediatric cancer care around the world even though it rarely treats patients under the age of 18.

With funding from the NPCF, Moffitt administers the Sunshine Project consortium, which focuses on finding less toxic and more therapeutic treatments for childhood cancers. It began when NPCF co-founder Melissa Dunkel took stock of the organization she helped create and decided in 2005 that it needed to jumpstart pediatric cancer research to make real progress in helping a population that is dramatically smaller in size compared to adult cancer patients and has never gotten the same amount of research attention and brainpower.  

Dunkel was able to get the ear of Dr. Douglas Letson, a Moffitt specialist in a cancer called sarcoma, which occurs in the bones and soft tissues — often in children and young adults. While her organization excelled at raising funds, she remembers pitching the need for collaboration to move cancer research for children more quickly through the system. What evolved was a strategic partnership based on best practices and efficiency, with Moffitt providing the compliance and clinical research infrastructure to make the collaboration work.

Today, Dr. Damon Reed leads the collaboration. He is the director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Program at Moffitt and principal investigator with the Sunshine Project. "We share. We collaborate. We have everyone at the table," said Reed.

The collaboration now draws research partners from institutions like Duke Health, Cleveland Clinic, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins University and others, and has seven phase 1 or phase 2 trials underway. For the first time in its history, Moffitt has opened trials for patients with three of the deadliest pediatric sarcomas: osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma and fusion-positive rhabdomyosarcoma. Another trial underway by the consortium is examining the use of immunotherapy in pediatric glioblastoma, with pediatric brain tumors now the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children in the U.S.