The Purple Society Mission

The mission of The Purple Society is to change the prognosis of pediatric cancers that today are incurable; while connecting families of childhood cancer patients worldwide with resources, hope, and inspiration.

The Purple Society’s support of basic and clinical research within the established NIH/NCI infrastructure will expedite the discovery of new agents to treat incurable pediatric cancers.

Childhood cancers are rare diseases affecting 1 in 10,000 children under age 16. At the beginning of the 20th century, all childhood cancers were incurable; by the end of the 20th century, we made much progress in childhood survival rates. While increasing survival rates in childhood cancer is one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine, there remain childhood cancers where there has been little or no progress, and in the others the anticipated 100% survival is proving elusive. Remarkably, in 2011 childhood cancer remains the most common lethal disease of American children over the age one.

Historically clinical trials have been the cornerstone of success in conquering pediatric cancers, often outpacing basic research. Today, molecular and cellular biology present a continuous stream of discoveries revealing differences between cancer cells and healthy cells and offering an infinite number of potential targets for new treatments. At the moment, we are in the early stages of developing targeted treatments, and so far there are only a few notable successes among many attempts. Meanwhile, designing and carrying out clinical trials is becoming increasingly costly and impossibly complicated. To move forward, we need both models to predict which new treatments to test in humans and new ways to carry out trials for small subsets of children with uncommon diseases.

The Purple Society proposes to participate in the conquest of childhood cancer by supporting collaborative research to identify appropriate targets, discover ways to hit these targets, and carry out clinical trials using the infrastructure of the national cooperative group.

Our Aims: 

• Collaborative Basic Research: Starting with high-grade gliomas, The Purple Society will support rigorous preclinical investigation of patients’ tumor specimens provided by the CHTN bank to teams of qualified scientists who will agree to work collaboratively and in parallel to share, confirm, and prioritize discoveries and to rigorously evaluate preclinical models for testing in pediatric clinical trials.

• National Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials: By supplementing case reimbursement for these trials, The Purple Society will expedite development of parallel clinical trials measuring safety and efficacy of new treatments within the infrastructure of the NIH supported national cooperative group, Children’s Oncology Group.

• Access and accrual to trials: The Purple Society will promote awareness of, access to, and participation in these trials for patients through the website and social media.

• Impact: The Purple Society will continuously evaluate this model of foundation support to develop and facilitate NIH approved and funded clinical trials with a long range goal of adoption by other foundations for other cancers, other age groups, and other diseases.