Kids Candidly Spring Newsletter 2023

how to help

YOUR GIFTS AT WORK, TRANSFORMING THE LIVES OF CHILDREN WITH CANCER

ways you can help

transform the life of a child

WIN

CRUSH IT

Purchase your Crush childhood tickets for the cancer at Kindle Kids Cancer Care Pursuit, Saturday, MEGA 50/50 May 27. Your raffle, from team of four will April 20 through go head-to-head September 7. The with other teams more you buy, to compete in an the bigger the obstacle-style jackpot grows. race to raise funds You win. Kids Win. for Kids Cancer Care programs.

CYCLE

BE BRAVE

VOLUNTEER

Join us for the 2023 Kids Cancer Care Cycle Challenge: Ride of Courage, July 14 to 16. A premier all-inclusive, 3-day cycling event through the Alberta Foothills.

Overnights at Camp Kindle.

Register your Big Brave event today! Cut, colour or shave your lid for a kid while raising funds and showing moral support for kids who lose their hair to chemotherapy.

Give the gift of time. Tutors.

Camp counsellors.

One-to-one aides.

Event and office volunteers. We have a volunteer spot just for you!

SPRING ISSUE — 2023

kidscancercare.ab.ca

Donate, register or learn more at kidscancercare.ab.ca today.

childhoods restored by you

YOU’RE GIVING CHILDREN THEIR CHILDHOODS

Eddie showing Tim Hunter how to score goals.

“More than anything, they just need to be kids.”

Cont. from page 2

Eddie and friends at Camp Sunrise.

— Susanne

at camp SunRise. It’s not very often that someone can be his one-to-one aide all day, but Kids Cancer Care arranged it. Eddie could experience camp just like the other kids.”

Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta 5757 4 Street SE Calgary, Alberta T2H 1K8

kidscancercare.ab.ca

Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta is a registered Canadian charity #89940 9171 RR0001.

With your support, we are able to make our programs fully inclusive for all children.

Knowing their son could experience the joys of childhood after so much pain and suffering was healing for Susanne and Peter.

“Kids Cancer Care recognizes that siblings need support too, says Susanne. “The whole family needs to heal. It’s such a lifelong journey — spiritually, socially, mentally. When bad things happen, you have to look for the light. Kids Cancer Care is that light. All the support makes the impossible, possible.”

Eddie and his one-to-one aide Alaina at Camp SunRise.

Thank you for making summer camp possible for Eddie and his brother Luke and the hundreds of children in Alberta impacted by cancer.

childhoods restored by you

Unique Perspectives Photography

CEO message

You're making the impossible, possible

“Eddie went to camp even before he went to school!

He still talks about it. He wants to go again. He wants to go tomorrow.” — Susanne

Play opens children to a world of possibility, imagination, exploration, and self-expression. It develops their brains and builds their resilience and problem-solving skills.

Even a sick child needs to play.

Seeing Eddie play at our SunRise camp is truly inspiring. He is so joyful and determined. Even with his limitations, Eddie participated in every activity with gusto.

Our programs are designed with kids like Eddie in mind, and with you at our side, we’re able to offer hundreds of Alberta children a chance to play — regardless of their treatments or side effects.

Thank you for bringing the magic of play to hundreds of Alberta children affected by cancer. The play they engage in today is shaping the persons they will become tomorrow.

Thank you,

Christine McIver, M.S.M., LLD (Hon), CFRE Founder and Chief Executive Officer PS. Incidentally, Einstein believed that “Play is the highest form of research.” In this issue, we share news about a research breakthrough in immunotherapy made possible by you.

And, for Eddie and his brother Luke, there’s no better place than camp. Your support gave both boys a magical camp “When bad things happen, experience in 2019 and 2021. Now, they’re you have to look counting down the days for the light. to summer camp again.

When Susanne and Peter Glanville noticed their two-year-old son Kids Cancer Care regress to crawling “More than anything, is that light.” — Susanne suddenly, they knew they just need to be something wasn’t right. kids,” says Susanne.

With temper tantrums and fussy eating, they thought he was just Although Eddie can now swallow food, he still needs to sip his drinks through a going through his terrible twos, but when Gtube (gastrostomy tube). He’s unable Eddie started vomiting in the mornings, to walk or stand without support and he their family doctor became concerned. now uses a wheelchair. While his speech A CT scan at the Alberta Children’s is impaired, Eddie’s a great little reader Hospital revealed that Eddie had a brain and speller. If people can’t understand tumour. As Susanne and Peter scrambled him, he spells out the words. to absorb the news, their baby boy “We’re so grateful to went in for emergency brain surgery.

Kids Cancer Care,” says That surgery would change everything.

Susanne. “The staff put Post-surgery, Eddie experienced so much thought and posterior fossa syndrome — a care into setting up the condition that affects balance right resources for Eddie and coordination and Cont. on page 4 the ability to swallow, speak, and walk. After months of chemotherapy, and two stem cell transplants, the cancer was finally eradicated.

Thanks to you, Kids Cancer Care was there to support the Glanville family every step of the way: “We were able to connect with volunteers and other families at Pizza Nights in the hospital, and over time, we started

L-R: Luke and Eddie at PEER.

You're making live-saving therapies possible today

“Immunotherapy is a new type of cancer therapy that trains our own immune systems to target and kill cancer. And to say immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment is an understatement.” — Dr. Franz Zemp When Milan Heck and her parents signed a consent form to donate her tumour and tissue samples to science, they knew the decision would advance research and may one day save lives. What Milan didn’t know is that the patient may be her.

taking in more resources.” says Susanne. “Kids Cancer Care was always front and centre — not just in the critical stage but as we came into a better place.”

“Play is the work of childhood.”

— Dr. Jean Piaget Did you know that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child considers play a right? Like art and culture, play is essential to our humanity.

research powered by you

Dr. Zemp leads the Synthetic Immunology arm of a research group called ACTION (Alberta Cellular Therapy Immune Oncology Initiative).

Led by Dr. Doug Mahoney at UCalgary, ACTION is comprised of doctors and scientists who work together to develop next-generation immunotherapies by harnessing the child’s own immune system.

“The research coming out of this lab could save my life.” — Milan

Milan was 14 years old in 2015 when she was diagnosed with alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), a rare cancer primarily affecting teens and young adults. Today, Milan is a health sciences student at the University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine, and she is still fighting the same cancer.

“It has spread everywhere,” says Milan.

“Since diagnosis, I’ve had 10 surgeries.

They’ve had to remove it from my hip, brain, spine, lungs, pancreas, and small bowel.”

Using Milan’s tumour and tissue samples, a UCalgary research team was able to grow an ASPS cell line in a petri dish. One of only two or three ASPS cell lines in the world, Dr. Zemp and researchers around the world can now study the rare cancer to identify potential targets for therapy.

“We found a mark on her cells that wasn’t present in many other places in her body,” says Dr. Zemp. This mark became the target for a new cancer treatment called CAR T cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy that triggers the patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. With the new immunotherapy, they could genetically rewrite Milan’s immune system to specifically target her unique cancer.

Milan Heck and Dr. Franz Zemp

“We were able to build and thoroughly test an ASPSspecific CAR T therapy that works tremendously well in a laboratory setting,” says Dr. Zemp. “Essentially,

Dr. Zemp and Dr. Mahoney

we hit a home run. Within several months of its creation, we had engaged clinicians, the hospital, manufacturing facilities, and Health Canada to start regulatory approval. We are currently on track to have a clinically viable systemic ASPS-specific treatment later this year.”

After years of invasive surgeries and medical procedures to manage the recurring cancer, Milan is hopeful about this new development.

“The research coming out of this lab could save my life,” says Milan, who is planning to begin graduate work in immunology after graduating from UCalgary.

It may also save the lives of patients battling other sarcomas too. “The pipelines that we have built, the people we have met to enable this, have laid out a very clear path for our future,” says Dr. Zemp. “Different fusion-genes drive most sarcomas of children and young adults, and we are scouring the signatures they leave on cancer cells now.

We may have hit a home run with ASPS, but we are swinging for a grand slam.”

Thank you! Your support is leading to promising new therapies with the potential to save lives without the devastating aftereffects of conventional cancer therapies.

childhoods restored by you

Unique Perspectives Photography

CEO message

You're making the impossible, possible

“Eddie went to camp even before he went to school!

He still talks about it. He wants to go again. He wants to go tomorrow.” — Susanne

Play opens children to a world of possibility, imagination, exploration, and self-expression. It develops their brains and builds their resilience and problem-solving skills.

Even a sick child needs to play.

Seeing Eddie play at our SunRise camp is truly inspiring. He is so joyful and determined. Even with his limitations, Eddie participated in every activity with gusto.

Our programs are designed with kids like Eddie in mind, and with you at our side, we’re able to offer hundreds of Alberta children a chance to play — regardless of their treatments or side effects.

Thank you for bringing the magic of play to hundreds of Alberta children affected by cancer. The play they engage in today is shaping the persons they will become tomorrow.

Thank you,

Christine McIver, M.S.M., LLD (Hon), CFRE Founder and Chief Executive Officer PS. Incidentally, Einstein believed that “Play is the highest form of research.” In this issue, we share news about a research breakthrough in immunotherapy made possible by you.

And, for Eddie and his brother Luke, there’s no better place than camp. Your support gave both boys a magical camp “When bad things happen, experience in 2019 and 2021. Now, they’re you have to look counting down the days for the light. to summer camp again.

When Susanne and Peter Glanville noticed their two-year-old son Kids Cancer Care regress to crawling “More than anything, is that light.” — Susanne suddenly, they knew they just need to be something wasn’t right. kids,” says Susanne.

With temper tantrums and fussy eating, they thought he was just Although Eddie can now swallow food, he still needs to sip his drinks through a going through his terrible twos, but when Gtube (gastrostomy tube). He’s unable Eddie started vomiting in the mornings, to walk or stand without support and he their family doctor became concerned. now uses a wheelchair. While his speech A CT scan at the Alberta Children’s is impaired, Eddie’s a great little reader Hospital revealed that Eddie had a brain and speller. If people can’t understand tumour. As Susanne and Peter scrambled him, he spells out the words. to absorb the news, their baby boy “We’re so grateful to went in for emergency brain surgery.

Kids Cancer Care,” says That surgery would change everything.

Susanne. “The staff put Post-surgery, Eddie experienced so much thought and posterior fossa syndrome — a care into setting up the condition that affects balance right resources for Eddie and coordination and Cont. on page 4 the ability to swallow, speak, and walk. After months of chemotherapy, and two stem cell transplants, the cancer was finally eradicated.

Thanks to you, Kids Cancer Care was there to support the Glanville family every step of the way: “We were able to connect with volunteers and other families at Pizza Nights in the hospital, and over time, we started

L-R: Luke and Eddie at PEER.

You're making live-saving therapies possible today

“Immunotherapy is a new type of cancer therapy that trains our own immune systems to target and kill cancer. And to say immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment is an understatement.” — Dr. Franz Zemp When Milan Heck and her parents signed a consent form to donate her tumour and tissue samples to science, they knew the decision would advance research and may one day save lives. What Milan didn’t know is that the patient may be her.

taking in more resources.” says Susanne. “Kids Cancer Care was always front and centre — not just in the critical stage but as we came into a better place.”

“Play is the work of childhood.”

— Dr. Jean Piaget Did you know that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child considers play a right? Like art and culture, play is essential to our humanity.

research powered by you

Dr. Zemp leads the Synthetic Immunology arm of a research group called ACTION (Alberta Cellular Therapy Immune Oncology Initiative).

Led by Dr. Doug Mahoney at UCalgary, ACTION is comprised of doctors and scientists who work together to develop next-generation immunotherapies by harnessing the child’s own immune system.

“The research coming out of this lab could save my life.” — Milan

Milan was 14 years old in 2015 when she was diagnosed with alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), a rare cancer primarily affecting teens and young adults. Today, Milan is a health sciences student at the University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine, and she is still fighting the same cancer.

“It has spread everywhere,” says Milan.

“Since diagnosis, I’ve had 10 surgeries.

They’ve had to remove it from my hip, brain, spine, lungs, pancreas, and small bowel.”

Using Milan’s tumour and tissue samples, a UCalgary research team was able to grow an ASPS cell line in a petri dish. One of only two or three ASPS cell lines in the world, Dr. Zemp and researchers around the world can now study the rare cancer to identify potential targets for therapy.

“We found a mark on her cells that wasn’t present in many other places in her body,” says Dr. Zemp. This mark became the target for a new cancer treatment called CAR T cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy that triggers the patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. With the new immunotherapy, they could genetically rewrite Milan’s immune system to specifically target her unique cancer.

Milan Heck and Dr. Franz Zemp

“We were able to build and thoroughly test an ASPSspecific CAR T therapy that works tremendously well in a laboratory setting,” says Dr. Zemp. “Essentially,

Dr. Zemp and Dr. Mahoney

we hit a home run. Within several months of its creation, we had engaged clinicians, the hospital, manufacturing facilities, and Health Canada to start regulatory approval. We are currently on track to have a clinically viable systemic ASPS-specific treatment later this year.”

After years of invasive surgeries and medical procedures to manage the recurring cancer, Milan is hopeful about this new development.

“The research coming out of this lab could save my life,” says Milan, who is planning to begin graduate work in immunology after graduating from UCalgary.

It may also save the lives of patients battling other sarcomas too. “The pipelines that we have built, the people we have met to enable this, have laid out a very clear path for our future,” says Dr. Zemp. “Different fusion-genes drive most sarcomas of children and young adults, and we are scouring the signatures they leave on cancer cells now.

We may have hit a home run with ASPS, but we are swinging for a grand slam.”

Thank you! Your support is leading to promising new therapies with the potential to save lives without the devastating aftereffects of conventional cancer therapies.

how to help

YOUR GIFTS AT WORK, TRANSFORMING THE LIVES OF CHILDREN WITH CANCER

ways you can help

transform the life of a child

WIN

CRUSH IT

Purchase your Crush childhood tickets for the cancer at Kindle Kids Cancer Care Pursuit, Saturday, MEGA 50/50 May 27. Your raffle, from team of four will April 20 through go head-to-head September 7. The with other teams more you buy, to compete in an the bigger the obstacle-style jackpot grows. race to raise funds You win. Kids Win. for Kids Cancer Care programs.

CYCLE

BE BRAVE

VOLUNTEER

Join us for the 2023 Kids Cancer Care Cycle Challenge: Ride of Courage, July 14 to 16. A premier all-inclusive, 3-day cycling event through the Alberta Foothills.

Overnights at Camp Kindle.

Register your Big Brave event today! Cut, colour or shave your lid for a kid while raising funds and showing moral support for kids who lose their hair to chemotherapy.

Give the gift of time. Tutors.

Camp counsellors.

One-to-one aides.

Event and office volunteers. We have a volunteer spot just for you!

SPRING ISSUE — 2023

kidscancercare.ab.ca

Donate, register or learn more at kidscancercare.ab.ca today.

childhoods restored by you

YOU’RE GIVING CHILDREN THEIR CHILDHOODS

Eddie showing Tim Hunter how to score goals.

“More than anything, they just need to be kids.”

Cont. from page 2

Eddie and friends at Camp Sunrise.

— Susanne

at camp SunRise. It’s not very often that someone can be his one-to-one aide all day, but Kids Cancer Care arranged it. Eddie could experience camp just like the other kids.”

Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta 5757 4 Street SE Calgary, Alberta T2H 1K8

kidscancercare.ab.ca

Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta is a registered Canadian charity #89940 9171 RR0001.

With your support, we are able to make our programs fully inclusive for all children.

Knowing their son could experience the joys of childhood after so much pain and suffering was healing for Susanne and Peter.

“Kids Cancer Care recognizes that siblings need support too, says Susanne. “The whole family needs to heal. It’s such a lifelong journey — spiritually, socially, mentally. When bad things happen, you have to look for the light. Kids Cancer Care is that light. All the support makes the impossible, possible.”

Eddie and his one-to-one aide Alaina at Camp SunRise.

Thank you for making summer camp possible for Eddie and his brother Luke and the hundreds of children in Alberta impacted by cancer.