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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: John Reher
Executive Director, ABC²
(650) 685-2200
John.Reher@abc2.org

Contact: Jennifer O'Brien
UCSF News Office
(415) 476-2557
jobrien@pubaff.ucsf.edu

Neuro-Oncology Fellowship Granted to UCSF by ABC²

BURLINGAME, Calif. - March 5, 2003 - Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC²), a non-profit foundation dedicated to accelerating therapies leading to a cure for brain cancer, today announced it has granted a clinical fellowship to the University of California, San Francisco. The recipient, Dr. Ian F. Parney, M.D., Ph.D., is studying in the UCSF neuro-oncology department under the guidance of Michael Prados, M.D., UCSF Professor and Chief, Neuro-Oncology Service, Brain Tumor Research Center, and Department of Neurological Surgery. The fellowship is intended to support clinical research on new therapies for brain cancer victims.

ABC² was founded in May 2001 by Dan and Steve Case and their families, along with leading scientists and entrepreneurs. In order to accelerate progress in what has been an under-served field of research, ABC² provides researchers from all backgrounds with the support they need to make critical breakthroughs in brain cancer research. ABC² aims to raise awareness about brain cancer and help mobilize critical scientific research through research grants and partnerships. Further information can be found at their website: www.abc2.org.

The UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center (BTRC) is a research center of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Established in 1972, the BTRC was the first categorical Brain Tumor Research Center in the United States to be approved and awarded a Cancer Center research grant by the National Cancer Institute. Combining basic science research laboratories with a comprehensive Clinical Neuro-Oncology Program, the BTRC focuses on the translation of laboratory findings into improved and innovative clinical therapies. With this translational research focus, the BTRC has been the source of significant advances in the therapy of brain tumors-among them, the initial reports showing the efficacy of two drugs that are still the single-drug therapies most effective against the most common type of brain tumor. BTRC investigators introduced hyperfractionated irradiation for brain stem gliomas, pioneered the use of hyperthermia and brachytherapy in the treatment of recurrent malignant glioma and glioblastoma in selected patients, and performed the first study of gene therapy for patients with glioblastoma multiforme done at an institution outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Recently, for the 26th year, the BTRC successfully renewed its NIH Program Project Grant to investigate new treatments for brain tumors. In 2002, UCSF became one of the first two institutions in the United States awarded an NIH Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) Grant to study brain tumors, a translational research program that is led by principal investigators of the BTRC.

About ABC²

ABC² was founded May 2001 by Dan and Steve Case and their families, along with leading scientists and entrepreneurs. In order to accelerate progress in what has been an under-served field of research, ABC² provides researchers from all backgrounds with the support they need to make critical breakthroughs in brain cancer research. ABC² aims to raise awareness about brain cancer and help mobilize critical scientific research through research grants and partnerships.

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