Illinois Medicine magazine: Running for a Cause

Running

grateful patient

by Susan Reich

for a Cause

PHOTO: SUSAN REICH

The memory of the devoted dad they lost to complications from diabetes fuels identical twins Chris and Nikki Haras’ desire to support Cellmates on the Run, a charity running group that raises funds for the Chicago Diabetes Project

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HAT MAKES CHRIS AND NIKKI HARAS RUN? The memory of their father, Peter A. Haras, who died in 2006 from complications of diabetes, and their unflagging determination to save others from the same fate.

The 30-year-old Haras twins have run 184 miles and raised nearly $16,000 for diabetes research as members of the Cellmates on the Run charity running team. Comprised of many different types of runners—from diabetics and first-time marathoners to Ironman champions — the team runs to support the Chicago Diabetes Project (CDP), a consortium of physicians, scientists, engineers, chemists and molecular biologists from three continents who are collaborating to find a cure for diabetes as quickly as possible.

Cellmates on the Run is the brainchild of CDP Director José Oberholzer, MD, and his running partner, Martin Schlatter, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. The two friends had been talking about ways to generate private funding to

RACE AGAINST TIME THE FUNDING GENERATED by Cellmates on the Run couldn’t come at a more critical time. Today, diabetes affects more than 197 million people worldwide. The World Health Organization predicts that this number will more than double by 2030 and diabetes may become the world’s leading cause of death.

Behind these statistics are countless stories of diabetes’ devastating complications. Chris and Nikki Haras are all too familiar with these complications—and diabetes’ deadly toll.

Their father, Peter Haras, had lived with the disease for as long as Chris and Nikki could remember. Over the years, he’d fallen victim to grueling complications such as low blood sugar attacks, neuropathy, impaired vision and kidney failure. After Chris donated a kidney to her father in 2003, everyone hoped that the worst was over. But three years later, Peter Haras died of a heart attack at the age of 57.

Diabetes had devastated the Haras family. But the inspiration

“I was grieving for my dad and I needed to do something as my way of fighting back — my way of honoring him,” explains Chris Haras, 30. Adds her twin sister, Nikki, “When I read about the work that Dr. O and

advance the CDP’s research in islet-cell Outrunning Diabetes: transplantation.

Since 2009, the

The topic came up often during their training runs, but the epiphany Chicago Diabetes didn’t come until 2008, when Oberholzer and Schlatter ran the New York Project’s charity Marathon. Paced by Oberholzer, a running group, lifelong runner, Schlatter made it to the finish line in less than four hours. But Cellmates on the Run, after crossing the finish line, the Wrigley has raised more than executive fainted — and race paramedics quickly transported him to the medical $750,000 for lifesaving tent. While Oberholzer waited for his friend to recover, he idly picked up a diabetes research. brochure about charity running teams and leafed through it.

“When Martin woke up,” recalls Oberholzer today with a chuckle, “the first thing he said to me was ‘Don’t tell my wife.’ Then he asked what I was reading and I held up the brochure. He exclaimed, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s it! We can create a charity running team and raise money for your diabetes project.’ Martin went home and immediately put a marketing plan together.”

In 2009, the Wrigley Company sponsored Cellmates on the Run as an official charity with the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. During the team’s first year, 131 runners raised more than $200,000 for the CDP. By the end of 2011, Cellmates runners had raised $750,000. Oberholzer hopes to register enough runners in 2012 to raise $500,000 more.

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to raise funds to help fight the disease didn’t come until 2009, when Chris ran across the Cellmates on the Run link in the charity running section of the Chicago Marathon website. “I was grieving for my dad and I needed to do something as my way of fighting back— my way of honoring him,” she explains today.

When she realized that Cellmates on the Run was a fundraising group for diabetes research, she clicked on the link for the Chicago Diabetes Project website to find out more. “The testimonials by the islet-cell transplant recipients really got to me,” she recalls, “because their stories sounded so much like my dad’s.”

The idea of running to fight the disease that had cut her father’s life short appealed to Chris. So she broached the idea to her sister. “When I read about the work that Dr. O and his researchers were doing, I was sold right away,” says Nikki. “I couldn’t wait to get started.”

The twins signed on with Cellmates in June 2009, which left them just under four months to train for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in October. They used social media to generate 95 percent of their sponsorship support, posted regular updates on their Facebook page and put a donation bucket near the cash register at Blueberry Field, the Haras family’s restaurant in South Holland.

The physical rigors that followed proved to be more daunting. “We were both in pretty good shape, but I don’t think either one of us had ever run more than five miles at one time,” Nikki confesses. “Chris found a training plan online and we followed it as much as we could. But with school and work and the hours we

PHOTO: SUSAN REICH

spent helping our mom at the restaurant, it was tough.”

Weeks passed and the twins steadily increased their mileage.

Then the going got tougher. “Once we passed the 12-mile point, we hit a wall,” says Nikki. “But every donation that came in gave us more incentive to keep training.”

The morning of the 2009 Chicago Marathon dawned with near freezing temperatures and reports of icy patches on the streets. With more than $5,000 in donations in hand, the pressure was on—and the Haras twins were psyched.

“The crowd was wild at the start,” recalls Chris. “It was really fun. But when the going got rough and I had to dig deep, I started feeling all of these crazy emotions about our dad. My hip was hurting and it would have been so easy to say ‘I can’t do this.’ Then I remembered what our dad had gone through and thought, ‘How can I complain about 26.2 miles?’”

“We crossed the finish line together, holding hands,” Nikki adds. “It was such an emotional experience — tears, laughter, anger— so many emotions all mixed together. And the entire time, I couldn’t stop thinking about our dad.”

Chris and Nikki run so that others have the opportunity to beat diabetes.

THE CHICAGO DIABETES PROJECT Global Collaboration for a Faster Cure

T

his researchers were doing, I was sold right away. I couldn’t wait to get started.”

After that emotional first marathon in 2009, the Haras twins continued their fundraising as Cellmates, running the Chicago and New York marathons in 2010. Chris ran both marathons, which were only six weeks part, while suffering from an upper respiratory infection. Nikki injured her knees in the New York marathon and had to stop every two miles to ice them. It took her seven hours to reach the finish line, which she crossed with tears streaming down her face.

But by 2011, Nikki was sidelined by injuries, so Chris ran the ING New York Marathon with the Cellmates team while her twin cheered her on. This year, despite Chris’ packed schedule as a full-time employee at OptionsCity Software, Inc. and a part-time student at DePaul University, she has found the time to train. Chris and Nikki will once again carry the torch as Cellmates at the 2012 Chicago Marathon in memory of their father.

“Dr. O is such an inspiration to me,” Nikki confides, “and everyone on the Cellmates team has a story about why they are running.

It’s been healing to know that we are not alone.”

“It’s a wonderful program,” adds Chris. “If we can help just one diabetic who is experiencing the same complications that our dad did —or give hope to one person who has a parent or a child with diabetes, it will be worth every mile.”

After logging nearly 200 miles and raising thousands of dollars to fight diabetes, Chris and Nikki could retire their running shoes and take a well-deserved break. But the Haras twins aren’t done fighting yet. They’ll continue to honor their fallen father by contributing everything they can to the efforts to find a cure until the disease that killed him is stopped in its tracks.

HE FIRST INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION OF ITS KIND, the Chicago Diabetes Project was launched in 2004, when the Washington Square Health Foundation provided seed money to bring top researchers from the U.S., Switzerland, France, Norway and Slovakia to the University of Illinois to advance diabetes research.

The CDP’s mission is to make the transplantation of insulinproducing islet cells a viable treatment option for the majority of type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients. During the islet transplant research team’s first clinical trial, transplanted islet cells quickly began to act as insulin factories in 10 out of 10 transplant recipients, enabling them to achieve insulin-independence.

The CDP is now in the final stages of a Phase 3 clinical trial, which will bring José Oberholzer, MD, and his colleagues one step closer to establishing islet transplantation as a standard of medical care. To complete the clinical trials the CDP needs to fund at least 20 individual successful transplants, which cost $100,000 each in treatment and therapy.

Meanwhile, CDP researchers are making these transplants safer and more effective by researching islet-cell encapsulation methods to protect the cells from immune system assaults and eliminate the need for immunosuppressive drugs after transplantation. The researchers are also investigating a promising new procedure called cell genesis, which has the potential to provide an unlimited supply of islet cells and eventually eliminate the dependency on organ donors.

“We are close to a functional cure,” says Oberholzer. “Every time we perform an islet transplant, we completely transform a life. There are few examples of research where the results are so tangible and concrete. Now our biggest impediment to moving forward is money. We are funded by the federal government, but it’s not enough — not by far.

We need more philanthropic support.”

Oberholzer will continue to pursue his two passions, medicine and running, to raise funds for diabetes research until islet cell therapy is a reality for every diabetic.

To help give diabetics their lives back and support the funding of the stage 3 clincal trials contact Dolores Metzger at (312) 996-8769 or dmetzger@uic.edu.

To make 2012 the year you run for a cure, visit www.cellmatesontherun.com.

Not a runner? You can still help change the lives of millions who suffer from diabetes. Find out more at www.chicagodiabetesproject.org/ support. Or donate at www.outrundiabetes.com.

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