The V Foundation for Cancer Research, a top-rated cancer research charity, and the V Foundation Wine Celebration will celebrate their 19th annual event August 3-6, 2017, in Napa Valley. Hosted once again by Duke University’s Head Men’s Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski and his wife Mickie, this year’s “Fund-A-Need” will support a $6 million challenge grant that will fund emerging, high-impact research of cancers that derive from BRCA or BRCA-like mutations. The challenge was first announced in December during the V Foundation’s launch of its $200 million capital campaign, Not a Moment to Lose. The campaign is designed to build on the momentum behind extraordinary research findings that will achieve victory over cancer.
Since 1999, the V Foundation Wine Celebration, benefitting the V Foundation for Cancer Research, has raised over $80 million for cancer research and related programs. This three-day signature series of events in stunning Napa Valley demonstrates that commitment, passion and giving become the catalyst for positive change. Experience the best culinary adventures, the most sought after wines, exciting performances, thought-provoking panels and the chance to meet amazing people from all over the country who are joining the fight along with you – the fight to find cures for cancer.
“The Wine Celebration is a combination of remarkable wine, food and people, coming together to celebrate our lives and to raise much-needed funds for cancer research,” said Susan Braun, CEO of the V Foundation. “This year, we’re targeting research that helps us better understand why some people have a higher risk of cancer and how we can change the course of inherited risks.”
The Wine Celebration’s “Fund-A-Need” will advance the research of inherited mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that produce tumor suppressor proteins. The BRCA Foundation, founded by V Foundation Board of Directors member Evan Goldberg, and the Gray Foundation have each pledged $1.5 million towards the challenge grant. With a successful match by the V Foundation to the challenge, at least $6 million will be awarded to cutting-edge research exploring why women and men with a mutated copy of either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene are at a significantly increased risk of developing cancer. Though initial studies focused on breast and ovarian cancer, new research shows the mutation also increases the risks of pancreatic cancer, male breast cancer and prostate cancer. A subset of the V Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee and other experts, including Dr. Susan Domchek from the Basser Center for BRCA at the Abramson Cancer Center and Dr. Alan Ashworth from the University of California San Francisco, will award the BRCA Research Collaborative Grants to the best projects at institutions nationwide. Members of the Scientific Advisory Committee, which is comprised of some of the nation’s leading physicians and research scientists, will discuss current advances, alternative treatments and discoveries into clinical applications during the Wine Celebration’s “Answer for Cancer Research Symposium” on August 5.
“It is a dream come true for me to see a collaboration between these three organizations,” said Goldberg. “With a stellar grant committee made up of scientists associated with each organization and a donation match that can catalyze giving to the cause, this whole effort is destined to be far greater than the sum of its parts.”
In raising $200 million by 2020 with the Not a Moment to Lose fundraising campaign, the V Foundation will strategically focus on research aimed to transform the treatment, detection and prevention of cancer. In addition to the BRCA Research Collaborative Grants, areas of scientific research to be funded through Not a Moment to Lose include the study of prevention signals, clinical trials, immunotherapy pathways, big data collaborations and convergence projects, as well as pediatric cancer and translational research.
For more information about the V Wine Celebration, please visit www.winecelebration.org.
