Phoenix-based organization will bring a first-of-its-kind pediatric biobank to the Steele Children's Research Center. Fox Restaurant Concepts will serve as PANDA's title sponsor and presenter of the 2024 "Children Helping Children" Fashion Show and Luncheon.
PHOENIX, Jan. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- People Acting Now Discover Answers, the Phoenix-based, all-women's board known as PANDA, in collaboration with the Steele Children's Research Center, announced today its 2024 fundraising research project – The Deep Freeze: A Pediatric Biobank Project.
This year, PANDA focuses on bringing a first-of-its-kind pediatric biobank to the Steele Children's Research Center. A biobank, or biorepository, is a cutting-edge program that allows doctors and scientists to collect and annotate pertinent health information and preserve clinical samples in long-term storage for future research use. It involves high-tech, continuously monitored deep freezers where biological material, such as blood or tissue samples, can be preserved.
"PANDA has always believed that furthering research and technology are some of the best ways we can help sick children," said PANDA's president of the board, Kim Willems. "We are proud to do our part in helping to create a pediatric biobank. It will allow for information that is added from one child today to ultimately benefit another child tomorrow by providing more efficient diagnoses and insight into how certain diseases respond to medicine and treatment, allowing for healthier and happier children."
As part of the biobank development, PANDA will look specifically at creating research and data around certain rising autoimmune diseases in children. Asthma, kidney disease, liver disease, intestinal diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease and celiac disease, Children's Postinfectious Autoimmune Encephalopathy and rheumatological disease have all significantly increased in the last several years. Early diagnosis and intervention of these diseases are integral for a child's health and well-being.
"The future of medical research is biobanking," said Dr. Fayez K. Ghishan, PANDA endowed director of the Steele Children's Research Center. "We need to discover the mechanisms for how the rise in autoimmune diseases is occurring in the pediatric population and the only way we can do that effectively is by analyzing the samples directly from the patients. These advancements in technology will allow us to more quickly give parents and families the answers they need to help their children and will help other children with similar illnesses as well."
To help PANDA reach the 2024 goal, Fox Restaurant Concepts has partnered with PANDA for its sixth year and committed another $300,000 to help make the pediatric biobank project a reality. The Fox Family and Fox Restaurant Concepts have committed more than $1 million to PANDA.
"We have such gratitude for our community and the support we've been given over the last 25 years," said Sam Fox, FRC Founder. "So when we witness an organization like PANDA doing the most for that community, we are all in. We have seen firsthand the impact that PANDA has made in the lives of children in our local community and beyond, and we are proud to be supporting PANDA as the title sponsor for our sixth consecutive year."
The fundraising year will culminate with PANDA's 24th Annual "Children Helping Children" Fashion Show and Luncheon presented by Fox Restaurant Concepts at the Arizona Biltmore on May 11, 2024. Since PANDA's inception in 1999, the philanthropy has raised more than $30 million, which has been used to research treatments and cures for devastating and life-threatening childhood diseases.
About PANDA
People Acting Now Discover Answers (PANDA) is a Phoenix-based philanthropic organization that helps support and fundraises for the Steele Children's Research Center, part of the University of Arizona. PANDA was founded in 1999 with the goal of supporting discovery processes that lead to improved treatments and cures for devastating childhood diseases. To date, the all women board of volunteers at PANDA has raised $30 million and has helped researchers secure more than $110 million in grants that have improved children's lives across the country.
About The Steele Children's Research Center
At the University of Arizona Steele Children's Research Center, physician-scientists and researchers are passionately dedicated to improving children's health through basic science research, translational research, and clinical research. As the research arm of the University of Arizona Department of Pediatrics, the Steele Children's Research Center is one of the prestigious Centers of Excellence in the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Our researchers and physician-scientists conduct research in many areas, such as autism, autoimmune disorders, cancer and blood diseases, type 1 diabetes, GI disorders, and lung disease, to name a few. Our researchers receive grant support from national funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, foundations, non-profit organizations and community philanthropy.
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SOURCE PANDA
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