New Horizons for Our Hope Foundation

Are these milestones just fluff? Absolutely not! Through the Coltman fellowship, and every research, travel, training, and program grant they give, Hope has launched dozens of promising careers and important trials.

Statisticians Megan Othus and Joe Unger were Coltman fellows – and have gone on, respectively, to help design our DART rare cancers trial and to measure our group’s historical impact. It was Joe who last year published the statistic that SWOG trials have saved over 3 million years of life – for an investment of only $125 per life-year. Coltman fellows Drs. Jason Zell, Monty Pal, and Veena Shankaran are currently running important SWOG trials investigating new ways to prevent colorectal cancers, new treatments for metastatic kidney cancer, and new tools to gauge the financial impact of cancer care.

Hope has provided critical funding for early stage clinical trials, translational medicine studies, and secondary data analyses. They help fund our Integrated Translational Science Center with our partners at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and The Jackson Laboratory – an initiative that has launched 17 pilot studies since 2014, testing cutting-edge algorithms, animal models, assays, and genetic screening tools and techniques.

Hope funds have launched and sustained our SWOG Latin America Initiative, our Young Investigators Training Course, our VA Integration Support Program, and our new Leadership Academy. So many SWOG programs simply would not have gotten off the ground without Hope seed monies.

In 2018, they bring us a new program to support group meeting travel for SWOG clinical research associates and nurses and a new program to provide training and education support to select SWOG trials.

Hope has funded good ideas, and good people, for a generation. If applicable, please join those lists. Here are some upcoming programs and deadlines to check. This year, look for more special events and surprises from our friends at Hope. And please, of course, donate here.

Jan 15 – CRA/Nurse Travel Support Program
Feb 1 – Secondary Data Analysis Projects
Feb 1 – SWOG Committee Development Funds
March 1 – Coltman Fellowship Program
March 1 – Impact Award Program
Ongoing - Trial-Specific Education Funds

Abstracts for ASCO 2018 are being accepted now. The ASCO deadline for submission is Feb. 13, 2018 at 11:59 pm EST. Please submit your abstracts to SWOG for processing and approvals to pubs@swog.org by Jan. 30, 2018.