V Foundation grant goes toward children's cancer research at UPMC Children's

Sports fans recognize the V Foundation for Cancer Research from its annual fundraiser, televised by founding partner ESPN.

But most of the people who watch during fundraising — and donate to its cause — probably don’t know where the money goes.

More than $150,000 of it came to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where Dr. Edward Prochownik has been researching the mutations that are responsible for widely differing rates of survival in children’s liver cancer, or hepatoblastoma.

While the disease has seven different sub-types, most are fairly curable. But some children present with sub-types that drop the average survival rate down to 20%.

“In hepatoblastoma, we know there are really only two mutations that are necessary to give rise to these tumors, and they occur in two different genes,” Prochownik said.

Changes in the gene proteins that scientists refer to as “b-catenin” and “YAP” are present in roughly 80% and 70% of hepatoblastoma cases.

By isolating those genes and injecting them into mice test subjects, Prochownik saw that the mice’s livers developed tumors “that are identical to the ones these children will get,” he said. “So the question becomes: what is it that accounts for the seven different types of hepatoblastoma? What is it that causes some children to present with a small tumor that is easily operable, and why do some children present with large metastatic cancers?”

Researching that answer was part of why Prochownik and UPMC approached the V Foundation, and this specific grant is co-sponsored by V Foundation partner Connor’s Cure, a cancer nonprofit founded by World Wrestling Entertainment Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon. In fact, Connor’s Cure has a specific connection to the hospital where Prochownik works.

Through charity work with WWE, McMahon had the occasion to meet Connor Michalek, an 8-year-old from Shaler and a patient at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, who ultimately lost his battle against cancer.

“His favorite nurse would come to give him his chemo treatment, and he would boo her as if he were at a WWE event,” McMahon told the V Foundation. “It made everyone laugh and called out the situation for what it was.”

Through his work, Prochownik is hoping that Connor’s story will become a thing of the past.

“It might be possible, at the time of diagnosis, to be able to identify the type of b-catenin a particular patient has, know in advance based on the results we’ve obtained in mice what type of tumor the patient will develop — how aggressive it will be, in other words — and then be able to tailor our therapy much more to the needs of the patient,” he said. “That would be much better than the one-size-fits-all approach that we do now.”

For more on the foundation’s 2020 grant recipients, see V.org.