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Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc. Partners with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to Support Early Career Childhood Cancer Researchers

In a continuing effort in the fight against childhood cancer, Rockland awarded the Joy Cappel Young Investigator Award (JCYIA) to two Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) Young Investigator grantees. In addition, Rockland is donating over $150,000 in reagents for the projects of ALSF Young Investigator and ‘A’ Award grantees with active grants.

The JCYIA includes the development of customized polyclonal antibodies by Rockland to further the research of Abhinav Dey, PhD (Young Investigator 2015) and Asen Bagashev, PhD (Young Investigator 2016). Dey and Bagashev received the award at the ALSF Young Investigator Summit in Chicago in October. Dey is researching personalized treatments for pediatric brain tumors. Bagashev is researching targeted therapies for relapsed B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The JCYIA, named in honor of former Rockland president and CEO Joy Cappel, is intended to foster research conducted by a promising post-doctoral fellow, graduate student or young investigator performing research in the areas of oncology, nuclear signaling, developmental biology, epigenetics, immunology, microbiology, neuroscience, signal transduction or stem cell technology. This award is in the form of a free-of-charge custom polyclonal antibody development project from Rockland.

Researchers investigating novel targets face a difficult hurdle when antibodies to their target are not commercially available. The JCYIA program gives researchers the opportunity to design a unique polyclonal antibody specific to their research, often resulting in a successful journal publication. Additionally, Rockland makes the antibody available to other researchers after validation as part of Rockland’s catalog antibody collection.

Since inception, ALSF has worked diligently to attract young doctors to the field of pediatric oncology, recognizing that these researchers hold future keys to better treatments and ultimately cures to end childhood cancers. The Young Investigator and ‘A’ Award grants reflect this belief. In addition to the two, ALSF funds several other grant categories to researchers on the front lines of the childhood cancer fight. For more information, visit: www.ALSFgrants.org.

About Childhood Cancer

Childhood cancer is a general term used to describe cancer in children occurring regularly, randomly and sparing no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region. Childhood cancer extends to over a dozen types of cancers and a countless amount of subtypes. Just a few of these cancer types include: Ewing’s sarcoma, glioma, leukemia, lymphoma, medulloblastoma, neuroblastoma, osteosarcoma, retinoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and Wilms’ tumor. In the United States, childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15. Every day, approximately 250 kids around the world die from cancer, accounting for 91,250 losing their lives to the disease every year.

About Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of cancer patient Alexandra “Alex” Scott (1996-2004). In 2000, 4-year-old Alex announced that she wanted to hold a lemonade stand to raise money to help find a cure for all children with cancer. Since Alex held that first stand, the Foundation bearing her name has evolved into a national fundraising movement, complete with thousands of supporters across the country carrying on her legacy of hope. To date, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a registered 501(c)3 charity, has raised more than $127 million toward fulfilling Alex’s dream of finding a cure, funding over 650 pediatric cancer research projects nationally. For more information on Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, visit AlexsLemonade.org.

About Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc.

Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc. supports the academic, biopharma, and diagnostic industries with antibodies and antibody based tools used in basic research, assay development, and preclinical studies. With facilities in Pennsylvania for over 50 years, Rockland manufactures products ideally suited for integration into critical assays such as western blotting, immunohistochemistry (IHC), immunofluorescence microscopy (IF), ELISA and flow cytometry. Additional information about Rockland’s life science tools and services can be found at www.rockland-inc.com.