Dana-Farber to Establish New Center for Brain Research; Charles A. Dana Foundation to provide $7.4 million to establish David Mahoney Center for Neuro-Oncology.

Business/Technology Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2000

Continuing its leading-edge research into treatments for malignant diseases, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is launching a new, comprehensive neuro-oncology center to focus on the genetics of brain development--with the goal of creating new clinical therapies for brain cancers and other neurological malignancies.

The Charles A. Dana Foundation, whose support of the Institute spans nearly four decades, has awarded it $7.4 million for the establishment of the David Mahoney Center for Neuro-Oncology. The center--which is the Institute's first major undertaking on the genetics of brain development--will enable Dana-Farber and other Harvard Medical School-affiliated researchers to gain valuable insight into the process of both normal and abnormal brain development. Members of the center will be drawn from throughout the affiliated hospitals of Harvard Medical School.

The new program has set an ambitious schedule to develop a multitude of nationally-useful components including a central nervous system and human brain tumor gene expression data bank, new mouse models of brain cancer, and an academic training program that would train physician-scientists in neuro-developmental genetics and neuro-oncology.

"With the discovery of new cancer-causing genes comes a tremendous opportunity to develop therapies to target these mutant genes and reverse the malignant characteristics of brain tumors," said Dana-Farber president David G. Nathan, MD. "A more precise understanding of human brain development will bring to light attractive targets for therapies to treat these lethal cancers. This generous grant from the Dana Foundation will undoubtedly help make great strides toward cures."

The center is named after a longstanding Dana-Farber supporter and trustee, David Mahoney, who served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Charles A. Dana Foundation, a private, philanthropic organization, until his death on May 1. Mahoney, a successful entrepreneur who led the Foundation since 1977, initiated an extensive grant program--particularly in brain research and education-that challenged researchers to join forces and use their imagination to defeat diseases of the brain.

"This is an intriguing, challenging, and critical area of research," said Edward F. Rover, president of the Charles A. Dana Foundation, and a member of its Board. "The Charles A. Dana Foundation is supporting the work that will be done at the Center because it believes that the results of that research will have significant clinical applications which will benefit patients and their families."

The Charles A. Dana Foundation's long history of devotion to Dana-Farber was reflected in the renaming of the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute in 1983 to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The Foundation has given nearly $33 million to the Institute since 1962. Mahoney and his spirit of scientific exploration spearheaded much of the organization's generosity towards Dana-Farber.

Deputy principal investigator Charles Stiles, Ph.D., chairman of the department of Cancer Biology at Dana-Farber and professor at Harvard Medical School, said that the center will bring clinicians, physician-scientists and molecular biologists together to attack the genetic basis of central nervous system cancer.

"Our first major initiative will be a project to identify, clone and characterize genes that direct the formation of the normal human brain," said Stiles. "We reason that these are the genes that give rise to cancer of the brain when their expression is disturbed. The proteins encoded by these genes will make attractive targets for the design of therapies that can penetrate the blood/brain barrier and selectively kill brain cancer cells."

Stiles went on to say that many of the genes that regulate normal brain development are likely to figure into the biology of other central nervous system disorders including Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and spinal cord injury.

Cancers of the central nervous system represent some of the most lethal cancers. Epidemiological data shows that primary cancers of the central nervous system are the third leading cause of cancer- related death among men 15-34 years of age. Among children, these cancers are the most common solid tumor and are the leading cause of cancer-related death in children. Prognosis of patients with these severe malignancies has not substantially changed for nearly two decades.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.net) is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the country and is the only center in New England to be a federally-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and Center for AIDS Research

The Charles A. Dana Foundation is a private, philanthropic, non-profit organization with particular interests in neuroscience and education.