Your connection to the Nobel Prize.

As you may know, the Kyrie Foundation's primary financial goal is to fund research for pediatric brain cancers. This goal has lead us to align with the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation in North Carolina, which will bestow a $50,000 Kyrie Foundation grant to research deemed valuable to our cause, specifically PNETs, should proposals in this area be made.

After speaking with PBTF, we are supremely confident in their measures of accountability and progress, which is why it is no surprise really that a scientist that they supported in 2000 has gone on to win the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine! Mario Capecchi, Ph.D., of the University of Utah School of Medicine won this illustrious honor for developing "gene targeting" technology in mice.

The discoveries made by Capecchi and the other scientists are being applied to everything from basic research to the development of new therapies for a multitude of diseases, the Nobel Prize committee said.

"Gene targeting in mice has pervaded all fields of biomedicine," the committee said. "Its impact on the understanding of gene function and its benefits to mankind will continue to increase over many years to come."

The PBTF supported Capecchi's work in 2000 with a grant for "A Conditional Mouse Model of Medulloblastoma." Medulloblastoma is the most common brain tumor of childhood and is associated with significant impairment and mortality.

Capecchi's project explored whether the early and intermediate events in the progression of medulloblastoma occur with a predictable sequence. The project used gene targeting to generate a mouse model of medulloblastoma in which the Patched gene was carefully controlled.

So what does this mean for you? Your pennies are really going to make high-caliber progress. Pretty cool, huh?

p.s.
Bookings have already started for our December 1 photo-fundraiser with Sandy Braun Photography!

p.p.s
Don't forget to make an honorary search on GoodSearch tomorrow where the Kyrie Foundation with be their Charity of the Day!!!