As many of you know, Sam had a leukemia that relapsed and he then had a Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT). One of the major obstacles to doing a BMT is graft versus host disease. This is the immune response that can occur between the patient and their new immune system. As Sam had complications from graft versus host disease (GVHD) as well as infections, I have always tried to utilize funds from the HOOT events to try to reduce graft versus host disease as well as infections. Curr

Thanks to everyone for your continued support of our research program. Some of the Sam Memorial funds have been recently utilized to purchase a second cell processing machine. This rather expensive piece of equipment is a cornerstone for our clinical research program because it allows us to manipulate a blood stem cell product in order to remove certain types of cells. Our clinical and basic science research program is focused on providing all patients with cancer and blood d

7.5.2016 Thanks, as always, for the “golf-outing” donation. I greatly appreciate the donation to help us direct research against AML and ways of making transplants safer. The HOOT Fund account affords us significant flexibility with being able to push novel research concepts as well as improve our clinical research infrastructure. Please feel free to forward to all the people who donated, as I feel so strongly that I need to steward these funds as best I can. Thanks again and

8.27.2011 We have used HOOT to treat patients with Natural Killer Cells who have leukemia and we are finally ready to infuse the antivirus cells now that we used the HOOT initial research to get a larger grant for that specific process. Also, HOOT funds helping with clinical research coordination so we can participate in more clinical trials. Bottom line: HOOT funds leading to exciting new options so THANK YOU ALL… -Sam’s Doctor

3.9.2011 Hi. Wanted to give you guys an exciting HOOT update. So the preliminary work that we have used HOOT funds for has laid the groundwork for a $100,000 grant to start bringing the anti-viral T cells into the laboratory! The protocol is now at the IRB and we hope to start infusing donor derived anti-virus cells this summer! I do not think we could have received that grant nor be ready to put cells into patients without HOOT support! The new project that I will start usin

3.22.10 Thanks to everyone, once again, for your continued support of our research program. Over the past year, our research lab has published our experience using small proteins (peptides) to make immune cells to fight off viruses after a bone marrow transplant. The fact that this data has been published in the medical literature is evidence that our approach is an advancement of the field. Our next steps are to turn that basic research into a clinical trial. This will requi