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| Bruce and Marikim Bunnell of Team Fairlee Friends Fairlee Vermont and Boston Massachusettts courtesy photo 2014 Prouty Event |
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| Betty Waterman of Team Better Thetford Vermont courtesy photo |
“The Prouty is an event where the community comes together to honor their loved ones and to raise money for cancer research.” said Yolanda Sanchez, Ph.D. Associate Director of Basic Sciences at Norris Cotton Cancer Center. (NCCC)
Yoli,
as everyone calls her, spoke on June 25th to an interested audience at Kendal at
Hanover about cancer research.
“The
Prouty provides seed money for our independent research. It enables us to develop a
research concept to the point where we can take it the NIH (National Institutes
of Health) and demonstrate it merits funding for further research and
development.
“We
work as teams composed of scientists, engineers, oncologists and surgeons as we
actively investigate and develop new cancer treatments.”
Sanchez
described five different, current research studies. One on brain tumors; another
using iron nano particles; the third using the patient’s own immune system; the
fourth creating personalized medicine treatments; and the fifth, finding drugs
that kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
Study
1. “Brain tumors become brilliant pink,” Sanchez said when speaking about their
work to find ways to more clearly define the line between healthy brain cells
and tumor cells, a mechanism which allows resection of the tumor with greater
success.”
Study
2. “We are in the process of getting approval for a breast cancer clinical
trial to study injecting iron nano particles into a tumor and then vibrating
the nano particles with a magnet.
The magnet makes the iron nano particles produce heat which then works
to eradicates the tumor.”
Study
3. “Researchers are studying how to turn off the cloaking mechanisms that
cancer cells use to protect themselves from the body’s own immune system. Then, when the cloaking mechanism is
off we can use the patient’s own immune cells and a tracking system to find and
kill tumor cells.”
Study
4. “Personalized medicine is being
studied and talked about by scientists and physicians everywhere cancer is
studied. It is made possible by
testing multiple drugs on cells from a patient’s tumor using mice as avatars
for patients. It allows us to
quickly learn what works and what doesn’t and to only use what works on the
patient.”
Study
5. “Finding the Achilles heel of
cancer. Chemotherapy drugs kill
tumor cells and kill normal cells.
We need a drug that only targets cancer cells. To date our researchers have found 10 molecules that kill
tumor cells and don’t harm normal cells.”
“The
Prouty is the heart and soul of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center,” said Sanchez
as she thanked the audience.
The
first Prouty was held in 1982 when 4 nurses decided to bike 100 miles to honor Audrey
Prouty; the namesake of the event and a beloved patient who had died of ovarian
cancer. The nurses raised $4000.00.
The
Prouty in now in it 34th year.
Organizers expect over 5000 participants this year and they expect to
raise more than $3 million.
“Team
Fairlee Friends” raised $6000.00 in 2014.
This year they hope to raise more.
Marikim Bunnell, a physician with an obstetrics practice in Boston, her
husband, Bruce Bunnell, a physician with a pediatrics practice in Boston, their
daughter, Megan Bunnell, a beginning medical student at Dartmouth and Eric Schlobohm,
Megan Bunnell’s boyfriend and a Dartmouth graduate, will be the core of their
team of 10.
“Coming
up the last hill, thinking of how miserable I feel and then I think of Kim’s
dad and my mom and their putting up with their cancer treatments – they were
both treated at Norris – and the memory of them gets me up that hill. When
we’re finally up the hill to Kendal the seniors are there and their slogan is
“we’re over the hill and so are you!”
It makes me so happy to see them. In our family the Prouty is an annual
tradition,” said Bruce Bunnell.
“Usually
we start in fog and the sun comes out about 9:30 and we ride until early
afternoon. It’s really fun because
there’s hundreds of people doing this together and at the finish there’s a huge
party,” said Bunnell.
There
are many ways to participate in the Prouty – biking, walking, rowing, golfing. Betty Waterman of Thetford first
walked the Prouty in 2013, shortly after she completed her treatment for cancer
at NCCC.
This
year Waterman will be walking with her daughter-in-law, Alicia Cloud and
granddaughters Jessica Cloud and Joslin Wainwright. They are “Team Better.”
Wainwright
said, “My grandma wanted our family
to do the Prouty together and I wanted to do it with her.”
Waterman
said, “The Prouty is fun. Last
year I walked the 5k. It was
beautiful, the trails went up and down hills and through woods. I talked to a lot of people on the
trail. I wore a hot pink hat so my
husband could spot me!
“On
the night before the Prouty tents will go up at the Richmond Middle School in
Hanover. Local restaurants serve a
meal – free to participants, and we plan to go,” said Waterman.
Waterman
was impressed with her care at the cancer center. With praise for her medical care and with praise for the way
patients are helped as they go through cancer treatment. “The waiting room is huge and there’s a
person who does massage, there is a lending library and just so many ways they
help you to feel good,” said Waterman.
Richard
Lucius, Director of Finance at the NCCC said, “87 cents of every dollar raised
at the Prouty event goes directly to cancer research and to support services
that provide comfort and help to patients and their families.”
“For
us to be able to use 87 cents of every dollar raised by the Prouty is
remarkable.” said Jean Brown, Director of Friends of the Norton Cotton Cancer
Center, “What makes it possible is over 1300 people volunteer their services
for the Prouty and over $356,000 worth of in kind services are donated – food,
music, trucks, signage, printing and more.”
The
2015 Prouty Honorary Chair Marc Milowsky said, “”We see the effects of the
money straying right here in the community… And the community really embraces
not only the event but especially the cause.”
