February 25, 2012
Saguaro High School
Students Supporting Brain Tumor Research (SSBTR) sponsored its 10th annual Phoenix Walk-a-thon Feb. 26, 2011 at Saguaro High School in Scottsdale to raise funds for brain tumor research. About 3,000 people representing 100 Arizona schools participated in the 2011 walk.
SSBTR, the largest student-run organization in Arizona, was founded in 2001. Each year, students in Arizona plan the annual walk-a-thon and donate the money raised to support research at various local and national organizations, including Barrow, Phoenix Children's Hospital, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Steele Children's Research Center and the National Brain Tumor Society. The group raised $230,000 during this year’s events, including a $54,000 donation to Barrow, and has raised more than $1.5 million since beginning the walk-a-thon.
Barrow Neurological Foundation is one of the major beneficiaries of this fundraising event. Barrow uses 100 percent of the money donated from SSBTR for bench (laboratory) research and translational (spanning the lab to the clinic) research, all designed to determine both the cause of and a cure for brain tumors. This work is done in the Neuro-Oncology Research Laboratory at Barrow's Ina Levine Brain Tumor Center where the goal is to understand the underlying genetic mechanisms that enable some brain tumors to survive cancer therapy. This laboratory is defining the genes responsible for resistance to currently available therapies, including chemotherapy and radiation.
