Since 1971, the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation, founded in memory of Vince Lombardi who died from colon cancer in 1970, has been dedicated to supporting initiatives aimed at preventing cancer, providing care to patients and advancing research. This year, the foundation awarded a grant to the University of Michigan that will directly fund Michigan Medicine’s ongoing colorectal cancer research. The research focuses on how adults 50 years or younger are affected by colorectal cancer and its treatment, in addition to identifying unmet needs of colorectal cancer survivors.
Current treatment strategies and survivorship are mainly based on studies of older adults, even though young adults are projected to account for over 30% of colorectal cancer cases in the U.S. by 2030.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Ann Marie Moss, executive director of the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation, said she hopes the grant will lead to significant advancements in cancer research.
“The foundation is dedicated to preventing cancer, caring for those who are battling it and finding a cure,” Moss said. “Important and innovative research, like that supported with this grant, is critical to our ultimate goal of finding a cure for cancer.”
In an email to The Daily, Dr. Pasithorn Suwanabol, assistant professor of surgery, who applied for the grant on behalf of Michigan Medicine, shared how her personal and professional experiences inspired this work, such as witnessing her father’s experience with cholangiocarcinoma and seeing the difficulties faced by younger adults with colorectal cancer during her career as a colorectal surgeon. She hopes the grant will help Michigan Medicine continue to be a leader in cancer care.
“This grant allows me to focus on improving survivorship care for this growing population, helping them navigate treatment and thrive beyond cancer,” Suwanabol wrote. “By supporting this work, the Lombardi Grant empowers Michigan Medicine to lead the way in addressing emerging challenges in cancer care, advancing survivorship and achieving its overarching mission of improving patient outcomes through innovation and excellence.”
Sunwanabol plans to use the Lombardi Grant to support three initiatives — analyzing treatment patterns using a dataset combining cancer registry and insurance claims data, evaluating the long-term impacts of cancer treatments on financial and reproductive health and conducting interviews to recognize the unmet needs of young cancer survivors.
LSA junior Ali Haidar is the founder of Remission Detroit, a Michigan-based organization with the mission of supporting cancer patients financially through copay assistance. Haidar emphasized the importance of grants like the one awarded by the Lombardi Foundation in making sure cancer research has enough funding.
“I think this grant is a very good step forward, not just for the University, but for the entire field,” Haidar said. “In my experience … I found that there’s a huge need for more funding (research). There’s so much that these labs do and they’re doing it on such a tight budget.”
Haidar said he hopes the grant allows more labs at the University to overcome the financial barriers that can come with doing cancer research.
“Research is expensive,” Haidar said. “My lab ran into so much financial trouble last year.When I was working there, we were cutting costs literally anywhere we could to make anything cheaper … I think this grant is gonna be great. Any of these labs that were struggling financially then they get this cash injection, it’s really gonna save a lot.”
Daily News Contributors Isabella Yatooma and Salma Abdelale can be reached atyatoomai@umich.edu andsalmaab@umich.edu.
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