Cancer survivor raises funds for chemotherapy research

Yaron Panov and Dr. Rochelle Schwartz
Yaron Panov and Dr. Rochelle Schwartz

When Yaron Panov was diagnosed with an aggressive and rare form of cancer, he was given six months to live.

In searching for treatment options for his soft tissue sarcoma, Panov and his wife, Dr. Rochelle Schwartz, discovered Champions Oncology, an innovative, precision chemotherapy program based in Baltimore and Israel.

Champions implanted Panov’s tumour cells and surrounding tissue into mice avatars, and then different chemotherapy drugs were tested on them. The course of treatment most effective on these mouse tumours was then used for Panov.

Fast forward 5-1/2 years, and Panov was telling his story at a recent fundraiser that kicked off the campaign for the Panov 2 sarcoma research initiative at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

“Against all odds, I saw my sons graduate,” Panov told the 85 people who gathered at the home of Barry and Varda Feiner that evening. “Maybe I’ll see my sons get married and I’ll even meet my grandchildren.”

Many of the people in attendance were major donors to the first Panov program for targeted chemotherapy. They were on hand to celebrate, because the campaign to raise $1 million for the Panov Program for Precision Chemotherapy had just reached its goal, and its first clinical research initiative was about to get started.

The study, which will identify precision chemotherapy treatments for hard to treat soft tissue sarcomas, will be run at Mount Sinai Hospital in partnership with Champions Oncology.

Dr. Albiruni Abdul Razak, a leading sarcoma oncologist, will head the Mount Sinai team that will investigate new personalized drug treatments that can target with precision the different variations of soft tissue sarcoma.

Schwartz joked about her first encounter with key members of Mount Sinai’s sarcoma team – Razak and Dr. Jay Wunder, surgeon-in-chief. They met at a sarcoma foundation dinner two years ago.

“I was ranting and raving about how Champion’s Oncology saved Yaron’s life,” Schwartz recalled. “You said to me, ‘If you can raise $1 million we’ll bring this cancer technology to Mount Sinai’… Well we did it!”

Indeed, she and her medical partner, Dr. Sharla Lichtman, raised the money through their friends and family. Lichtman, who served as MC for the evening, announced that she and Schwartz were building on their fundraising success by launching the next Panov program campaign of $1 million to advance Mount Sinai’s sarcoma research program.

Panov 2 will provide seed money for various research projects that can be leveraged to attract major federally funded research grants, she explained.

The flagship study will be on the early detection of liposarcoma, cancer of the fatty tissue, which is the type of cancer former Toronto mayor Rob Ford was diagnosed with earlier this year.

The study will be an international collaboration between Dr. Alona Zer of the Davidoff Cancer Center-Rabin Medical Center with the Weizmann Research Institute, the Ontario Cancer Institute and Mount Sinai’s sarcoma department headed by Wunder.

Zer, who finished a two-year fellowship at Mount Sinai and the Princess Margaret Hospital this year, said the joint research project will focus on premalignant cells. She said they will study healthy cells and trace their progression to malignancy with the goal of turning off the genetic switch that causes the cells to become cancerous.

Wunder said the Panov 2 research program will include a series of research projects that will increase the curability of soft tissue sarcoma, which is more challenging to treat than osteo or bone sarcomas, the type of cancer that Terry Fox had.

Wunder pointed out that during Fox’s lifetime, the survival rate was just five per cent, but today, Mount Sinai’s surgical oncology interventions cure 75 per cent of osteosarcoma patients.