Sing for a cure!

VIsit the Forth Annual Koncert 4 Kiddz On Saturday, February 20, at the Ritz-Ybor beginning at 6pm. The Famunda All-Stars, a group of talented karaoke-singers are hosting the event, along with local television personalities Charley Belcher and Jen Holloway.  All proceeds benefit the Pediatric Cancer Foundation (PCF).

Three pediatric cancer survivors will also take the stage for performances that are sure to get the audience on their feet.


Tickets are $25 for general admission and $50 for VIP which includes food. Tickets are available by phone at (813) 839-9393 or at http://www.ticketweb.com/.
For more information about Koncert 4 Kiddz, visit www.koncert4kiddz.com.

For more information about the Famunda All-Stars, visit the group's website at www.famundaallstars.com.

About Pediatric Cancer Foundation
With its national headquarters in Tampa, the Pediatric Cancer Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding research to eliminate childhood cancer. Our focus is to fund research to find less toxic and more targeted therapies, which will lead to the elimination of pediatric cancer worldwide.

How do we do it?
PCF relies on five primary sources of funds for its financial support: individual contributions, corporate contributions, planned giving, grants and fundraising events. All of the money that we raise is dedicated to one program: The Sunshine Project.

For the past 18 years, the Foundation has funded more than $3.8 million to researchers. For the first 15 years, we funded seed grants at St. Joseph?s Children?s Hospital and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, All Children?s Research Institute in St. Petersburg, the University of Florida in Gainesville, and the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Great headway was made with these projects, but progress was slow. While 80% of children are receiving treatment and their chances of survival are good ? due to research in the last 20 years - 20% of children are not surviving because no substantial research has been done to treat their cancers. We wanted to address that 20% that had not seen an increase in survival rates.

The Sunshine Project
PCF realized that the only way to speed up the process was to encourage leading doctors and researchers to work together. Three years ago, PCF formed The Sunshine Project, an innovative collaboration with one goal: to bring together the nation?s top doctors and researchers to fast-track new treatments and increase the survival rate for children battling cancer.

The creation of The Sunshine Project, though simple in theory, was complex in nature. But by establishing this program, PCF has developed a business model unlike any other in the field of pediatric cancer research. We have essentially capitalized on the strengths of researchers from all different fields of science and streamlined the process that has accelerated the development of new treatments.

Best of all, PCF has proven that this model works. Over the past two years, we implemented the groundwork necessary to introduce three new drugs into clinical trials. One trial is now open in St. Petersburg, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Phoenix, Southern Alberta, Gainesville, New York, Houston, and Denver. In addition, a second trial is open at City of Hope In Los Angeles. And a third trial will open in 2009. New compounds will be tested in these trials and hold great promise for children who have not experienced positive results under the standard treatment protocol.

Why is The Sunshine Project unique?
The Sunshine Project is the first of its kind in the field of pediatric cancer research.

Investigators are performing three vital phases of research simultaneously. Basic Science, Translational Research and Clinical Trials are the major research component that not only allow doctors to identify new agents in fighting cancer, but also helps researchers to understand the cancer cells? response to the drug. In identifying new treatment options through clinical trials, researchers will be focusing on developing treatments that target only specific cancer-causing molecules in the body, unlike more traditional treatments that often prove toxic to healthy cells.

Because the new gene-targeted therapies are less toxic than traditional treatment, it is also more effective because it targets the source of the cancer and does not compromise the rest of the body by eliminating the immune system which many times leads to death.

We currently work with leading doctors from around the United States from the following participating institutions: All Children?s Hospital of St. Petersburg, Children?s Healthcare of Atlanta, MD Anderson Cancer Center, City of Hope National Medical Center, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Nemours Children?s Clinic of Jacksonville and Orlando, Phoenix Children?s Hospital , Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Southern Alberta Children?s Cancer Program, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center/The Children?s Hospital, University of Florida Shands Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Through The Sunshine Project, we are directly addressing the 20% of children for whom the standard protocol of chemotherapy and radiation is not successful. We are one of the only research-funding organizations focused solely on early phase pediatric cancer research.

This means that via The Sunshine Project, PCF is in the forefront of developing treatments and drugs for less common and less curable childhood cancers. Research of more common forms of cancers has increased a child?s survival rate to nearly 80% - up from approximately 58% just twenty years ago.

This is what research can do ? save children?s lives.

Research. It?s what we fund. It?s all we do. It?s the only way to find a cure.