Hyundai Hope on Wheels Handprint Ceremony

August 31, 2015

WHO: Hyundai Hope on Wheels, Jim Click Automotive Group and the UA Steele Center

DATE/TIME:   WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 2, 10 A.M.

LOCATION: Banner Children’s – Diamond Children’s Medical Center (lobby)
 1501 N. Campbell Ave., Tucson

Two pediatric oncologists and researchers at the University of Arizona Steele Children’s Research Center have been chosen to receive a Hyundai Hope Scholar Grant from Hyundai Motor America’s Hyundai Hope on Wheels® program.

The $400,000 grant will be presented to Emmanuel Katsanis, MD, professor, and Yi Zeng, MD, PhD, assistant professor, during a Hope on Wheels Handprint Ceremony in the lobby at Banner Children’s – Diamond Children’s Medical Center on Wednesday, Sept. 2, at 10 a.m.

Every Handprint Ceremony celebrates the courageous lives of children faced with cancer and brings Hope on Wheels’ community of supporters together.

“Thanks to the funding from Hyundai Hope on Wheels, I will be able to further my research in using novel post-transplant drug approaches to successfully suppress graft-versus-host disease, while preserving graft-versus-tumor effects in patients who receive haploidentical bone marrow transplantation,” Dr. Katsanis said.

“With this support from Hyundai Hope on Wheels, I’ll be able to study whether the enzyme Pak2 can be a new target for suppressing graft-versus-host disease and improving graft-versus-leukemia through its modulation of immune cells,” said Dr.  Zeng.
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About the UA Steele Children’s Research Center
The UA Steele Children’s Research Center is one of the prestigious Centers of Excellence within the UA College of Medicine – Tucson at the University of Arizona Health Sciences. It is the state’s only academic pediatric research center designated by the Arizona Board of Regents, and the only facility in Southern Arizona where researchers and physician-scientists are dedicated to advancing medical knowledge through basic and translational research to improve children’s health. As researchers, they seek to discover answers to children’s medical mysteries. As physician-scientists, they provide compassionate care to hospitalized patients at Banner Children’s – Diamond Children’s Medical Center and pediatric outpatient clinics throughout Tucson and the state. And, as faculty members with the UA Department of Pediatrics, they teach and train the next generation of pediatricians and researchers.