Project asks how cancer therapies affect the heart later in life
WHO:
Local Hyundai dealers and representatives from Hyundai Motor America will present a Hope Grant in the amount of $250,000 to The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to fund childhood cancer research. Faculty from the School of Medicine who practice with UT Kids San Antonio will receive the award.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and in observance Hyundai Hope on Wheels is awarding 36 grants totaling $9 million to help fight childhood cancer. The donations are given as “Hope Grants” to hospitals and nonprofit organizations across the country. Hyundai Motor America and its dealers joined the fight against childhood cancer in 1998 and created a program called Hyundai Hope on Wheels. At the end of this year, Hope on Wheels will have committed more than $74.6 million to fight childhood cancer. For program information, visit www.hyundaihopeonwheels.org.
Every 36 minutes there is a new case of pediatric cancer. Every day approximately 40 children, the equivalent of a school classroom, are diagnosed with cancer, which adds up to almost 15,000 new cases of childhood cancer diagnosed each year.
WHEN:
10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 5
WHERE:
Sky Tower seventh floor, University Hospital, 4502 Medical Drive, San Antonio, Texas 78229 (University Health System is the site of UT Kids pediatric cancer care.)
WHO:
• Hope Grant recipient Gregory J. Aune, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine at UT Health Science Center; his laboratory has developed a mouse model to study how cancer therapies affect the heart later in life
• Rick Dorn, Hyundai Motor America
• Local Hyundai dealers and Hyundai Hope on Wheels representatives
Photo Opportunities
• Patient hand print ceremony (pediatric patients in attendance will leave their hand prints on canvas; children’s hand prints are the symbol of the Hope On Wheels initiative)
• Check presentation with faculty and Hyundai representatives
Media Contacts:
Will Sansom, (210) 567-2579, sansom@uthscsa.edu
Julie Wiley, (210) 358-2335, julie.wiley@uhs-sa.com