Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation's ultimate goal is to find cures for all kids with cancer. In the interim, the Foundation is working to find better treatments to lessen the life-long side effects of current therapies. In addition to working toward cures, the Foundation also works to ease the journey of childhood cancer for families by providing resources including a Travel Fund to help get children to the treatments they need, a free treatment journal to help parents stay organized and keep track of important information, and the SuperSibs powered by Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation program dedicated to comforting, encouraging, and empowering siblings during their family's battle against childhood cancer.

With the guidance of our expert Scientific Advisory Board, the contributions of supporters are helping to fund grants awarded to researchers who have submitted promising projects searching for better treatments and cures for childhood cancers. The Foundation is dedicated to filling critical gaps, speeding up the process of not only promising research, but getting that research into clinical trial and helping children as quickly as possible.

With a growing staff, led by the passionate parents of founder Alexandra "Alex" Scott (1996-2004), the Foundation is well on its way toward finding cures for all kids with cancer. With thousands of supporters across the country contributing to the cause annually, corporate partners dedicated to the mission and the best and brightest researchers, cures are on the horizon.

To date, research funded by the Foundation has made important strides in the fight against childhood cancer. Among the progress seen, a clinical trial for children harboring a specific cancer causing gene, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK). The trial was testing the effectiveness of a drug crizotinib that was already being used to treat lung cancer in adults and specifically looks to disrupt this gene. For 7 out of 8 kids who were enrolled in the trial, this is exactly what happened – there is no trace of the cancer. Better yet, crizotinib is a pill as opposed to IV chemotherapy, which minimal toxicities associated with it in spite of high dosages, and within days of taking it – it helped reduce fevers, chills and pains that some of the kids were previously experiencing.

Additionally, Matthias Gromeier, MD, of Duke Medical Center, was among the early research grantees from Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. His proposal to use the poliovirus to kill cancer cells, specifically pediatric glioblastoma - an aggressive form of brain cancer, earned him an ALSF Innovation Grant in 2006. Now, early results from a clinical trial at Duke have found that a modified version of the poliovirus is proving effective in treating patients with glioblastoma. ALSF funds supported research that contributed to making this clinical trial possible.