HEALTH & WELLNESS
SWCRF’s Dr Waxman and members of the SWCRF Scientific Advisory Board in Hainan in 2019 as part of a forum on aging and cancer
DR. SAMUEL WAXMAN AN INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO ERADICATE CANCER By Lillian Langtry
ince its inception in 1976, The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF), an international non-profit organization dedicated to curing and preventing cancer, has awarded more than $100 million to support the work of more than 200 researchers across the globe. Founded by Samuel Waxman, M.D., a notable oncologist and physician-scientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Foundation is a cancer research pioneer, and its mission is to eradicate cancer. The SWCRF unique approach funds cutting-edge research that identifies and corrects abnormal gene function that causes cancer and develops minimally toxic treatments for patients. Through the Foundation’s collaborative group of world-class scientists, the Institute Without Walls (IWW) investigators share information and tools to speed breakthroughs in cancer treatments.
BREAKING BARRIERS
Waxman’s passion for curing cancer and research started with the idea that collaboration—across expertise, research institutions, and even national borders—is the key to breaking down obstacles and achieving more breakthroughs. Through the SWCRF/IWW, they now fund a network of 50 researchers in North America, Asia, and Israel. In fact, the SWCRF has funded numerous research collaborations at academic research institutions in China. One such research collaboration led to discovering a treatment for a form of leukemia and improving patient survival rate from less than 25 percent to greater than 95 percent. These successful research collaborations led to a new SWCRF partnership in China that is poised to advance research tackling age as the leading risk factor for cancer. The SWCRF partnered with Hainan Medical University and Ruijin Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine to form the International Center for Aging and Cancer (ICAC) in Hainan, China. ICAC is a Sino-U.S. non-profit scientific research institution established to promote global research and cultivate talent in aging and cancer research and scholarship. Waxman, named Honorary Director of ICAC and along with members of the SWCF/IWW are serving in an advisory capacity. An inauguration ceremony and conference were held in Hainan, China, this past December 2020 to celebrate the launch. “This center is an important achievement as we are addressing the major risk for cancer, and that is aging. The incidence of cancer is rising considerably among the world’s aging population, and with the number of adults over age 50 growing, cancer will quite frankly become a worldwide epidemic,” said Waxman. He went on to say that the “International Center for Aging and Cancer will devote resources to bringing together scientists who are studying aging with those studying cancer to tackle this global public health crisis. This center will be fully committed to transparency, reciprocity, and adherence to scientific integrity norms,” he went on the say. 44 | OUR CITY, YOUR LIFE | FEBRUARY 2021
A NEW LIGHT
Ruibao Ren, Director of Shanghai Institute of Hematology and coorganizer of the ICAC inauguration and conference, added, “The recognition of aging roles in the development of cancer expands the theoretic paradigm for cancer. The meaning of aging here is more pathological, rather than merely a reflection of age,” said Ren. “Finding aberrant factors that allow cancerous cells to grow, spread, and resist therapies will not only shed new lights on the understanding of cancer but provide new opportunities for effective therapy and prevention. We will continue to work together to fight the global challenge of cancer.” Over the last several years, the SWCRF initiated a focus on aging and cancer. In 2018, the Foundation partnered with the National Cancer Institute and National Institute on Aging for a two-year, $3 million intramural and extramural research collaboration. In 2019, the SWCRF partnered with Wiley to publish a new scientific peerreviewed open access journal titled Aging and Cancer that is focused on understanding how the process of aging is linked to cancer. Waxman approached China’s clinical and research leaders in 2015 about establishing an international research center after many years of working with investigators on cancer research. His collaboration which started in the 1980s developed a cure for Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL), a once deadly form of leukemia. The treatment with a greater than 95 percent success rate has led to many more discoveries that have improved the lives of those dealing with cancer. Last year, Dr. Samuel Waxman was honored with the prestigious Jacobi Medallion from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. This recognition represents Dr. Waxman’s dedication to clinical and research excellence and the trust placed in him by so many throughout his distinguished career as an oncologist, hematologist, research scientist, founder, and CEO of the SWCRF. For more information on The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, visit waxmancancer.org. •
