The V Foundation for Cancer Research announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $200,000 to Dr. Vincent Luca for immunotherapy research at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.
With this grant, the V Foundation has awarded 29 grants totaling more than $8 million to the Moffitt team.
“Luca’s grant is possible through generous contributions by Constellation Brands Gold Network and one of its Tampa affiliate distributors, Pepin Distributing Company. Constellation and Pepin have been especially passionate and generous with their contributions to the V Foundation over the last several years. Pepin has been a long-time contributor to the V Foundation, supporting Constellation’s efforts since 2011,” the V Foundation noted.
“This grant to Moffitt Cancer Center on our ten-year anniversary of contributing to the Corona for a Cure campaign makes this especially rewarding. The Pepin family and all of our employees are proud to team up with the Constellation Brands Gold Network in the fight against cancer,” said Greg McLeod, the president of Pepin Distributing Company.
Increasingly, immunotherapy has become an option to fight cancer.
“Immunotherapy teaches a patient’s immune system to seek and attack tumors,” the V Foundation noted. “As current immunotherapy treatments are successful in about 30 percent of cases, scientists are searching for ways to create new classes of immunotherapy drugs. One promising treatment works by deactivating proteins that serve as ‘off-switches’ for the immune system. However, scientists need to understand how several of these switches carry out their functions on the molecular level. Luca’s team is using two different methods to guide the development of next-generation immunotherapies and, if these tests are successful, the long-term goal is to proceed to clinical trials in patients with melanoma.”
“We are so grateful for Pepin Distributing Company and the tireless efforts of the Constellation Brands Gold Network of distributors to fund game-changing cancer research, said Randy Karsten, the vice president of business alliances at the V Foundation. “Together, we can achieve victory over cancer.”
The V Foundation was founded in 1993 by Jim Valvano, the longtime basketball coach at North Carolina State University and ESPN personality.
Reach Kevin Derby at kevin.derby@floridadaily.com.
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