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Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network: for Education and Support 
They give bladder cancer patients and caregivers the resources and support they need to cope with the disease.
www.bcan.org

  Robert Miningham
  4/4/42-4/15/10
 Seize the Ribbon Foundation for
Bladder Cancer Research was started in his honor
and with his help in 2010.

Seize the Ribbon is a Bladder Cancer Research charitable organization that started with a symbol that was created by an artist for her dad to raise money .The ribbon was for the fight against bladder cancer and the hand was for his strength. Together symbolizing hope.

He died on 4/15/10 but before this time he helped Seize the Ribbon form a plan for a foundation that would help fight Bladder Cancer.
When Seize the Ribbon became active in fundraising and decided to fund Bladder Cancer Research they asked Dr. Phillips (who had been part of Robert’s Urology team) and Dr. Konno working on bladder cancer research in NY Medical College. Their work was/ is innovative and progressive treatment of Bladder Cancer with research work in both molecular and herbal approaches to bladder cancer treatments.
A mission was formed not long after Robert’s death that involved family and friends working without compensation to raise money each year to continue to support the doctors in their ground breaking research.
Now we are proud to say that we have been growing as a 501c3 Charitable Organization that has since 2010 raised money every year and Every penny raised still supports Bladder Cancer Research at NYMC in Vallaha NY.

We are proud of how far we have come in such a short time! Since 2010 we have continued to grow.

-We are a 501(c)3 foundation

-We are a registered New York Charity

- New York Medical School has set up an account for ‘Seize the Ribbon’. This allows us the ability to directly fund Bladder Cancer Research.

-We have created Annual fundraisers that are
used for education as well.

-Our new goal for this year is $35,000 to Bladder Cancer Research.

Other sources of fundraising we have-

-We have t-Shirts, hats and jewelry with our symbol for anyone who is fighting cancer and the ability to color the ribbon for your fight.

-Seize the Ribbon is also available on Facebook! We share our stories and news.

Most important is that our foundation is run by family and friends with donated time.

Seen here is the research team of Dr. Konno (Left), Dr. Valera (middle) Dr. Philipps (right

2024 New published article
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Purpose: Although several therapeutic options for bladder cancer are available, the poor efficacy and palpable side effects are a major concern. Establishing a more effective intervention is urgently demanded. Glycolysis is considered a strategic target and has been often investigated in various cancers
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Abstract Oxidative stress (OXS) has been recently considered as one of anticancer strategies by taking advantage of higher vulnerability of cancer cells (than normal cells) to OXS. In fact, the successful outcomes using OXS have been reported in several cancer cases. A medicinal mushroom extract, PE isolated from Poria mushroom, has been shown to have anticancer/antitumor activity
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Dr. John Phillips 
Bladder Cancer Research
 MD, FACS
Bladder cancer research of Nano-particle technology to
improve effectiveness
of intravesical chemotherapy delivery   
        

 Dr. Sensuke Konno, Ph.D
Bladder cancer research of Pharmacology of
Mitake/Poria Mushroom combined with Vitamin C

                              Updates
From Dr.Phillips- 7/2025
​"I hope the summer is off to a fine start!   We are very excited that Seize the Ribbon funds is supporting a new effort in the fight against bladder cancer.  The immunologic landscape of bladder cancer has been poorly understand ever since BCG was first discovered as a treatment for the disease.   Our newest faculty member in urologic cancers, Dr. Andrew Katims, is now using a cytokine that may selectively improve the results of BCG therapy in bladder cancer by synergizing with innate immune molecules in the bladder.  Such 'immunopotentiation' holds the promise of improving the response rates of bladder cancer to BCG while minimizing toxicity and cost."
From Dr. Konno-6/2025-
"We are planning to go up to the next phase of anticancer study using animals (in vivo).  We now have the data confirming anticancer effects of D-fraction (PDF, mushroom extract) and Lakanto (LKT, fruit extract) on bladder cancer cells in vitro.  Now, we will try to find out if PDF and LKT could prevent or stop the development of bladder cancer cells transplanted in nude mice (immunodeficiency mice).  We can make the two experimental approaches, intraperitoneal (IP) and/or orthotopic (OT) cancer injection/inoculation in mice.  The IP method is relatively easy to perform but the OT is technically challenging.  In addition, the cost of nude mice ($200/mouse) is somewhat expensive as conducting research always requires certain financial support.  So, we definitely need your generous support and we appreciate that."

News from 2024-
​
 From Dr.Phillips- The most common treatment for stage 1 bladder cancer is a 100 year-old vaccine known as BCG.  The use of BCG is so important that all subsequent treatments depend on whether a patient has or has not responded to BCG. Unfortunately, BCG is becoming increasingly hard to find and provide to patients.  Alternatives to BCG, ideally those that are even more effective, are urgently needed to combat this disease. Thanks to the direct financial support of Seize the Ribbon, our laboratory has made great progress in this effort. Although FDA requirements and costs tend to slow the initiating of clincial drug trials that will test our efforts, we are still committed towards a nano-particle based therapy that will improve upon or replace BCG. 
 
We’re also pleased to welcome Dr. Andrew Katims, our newest faculty member, whose training background includes Mount Sinai Medical Center and Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Katims’ focus is on bladder cancer as well and it is to exploit the unique immunological environment of the bladder upon which the BCG response depends.  With Seize the Ribbon support, we are hoping to continue clinical and basic science trials to understand the lymphatic cells within the bladder wall that are so critical to whether a patient does or does not respond. And our efforts will increase the number of patients we can treat here at Westchester Medical Center and within National Cancer Institute-supported clinical trials.    
 
We plan on submitting important papers to the Society of Urologic Oncology and to the Journal Cancer reporting our findings on the nanoparticle therapy of stage I bladder cancer.    Indeed, 2025 looks to be an incredibly productive year in which our ability to cure stage 1 bladder cancer greatly increases.
 
 From Dr Konno-We have been working on the extract of monk fruit, Lakanto, which showed a considerable anticancer effect against bladder cancer cells.  As it can be easily taken daily, it may help prevent a potential cancer incidence.  Additionally, we recently started studying a new mushroom extract called CHX, which also appears to have anticancer activity.  We are now investigating if the combination of Lakanto and CHX could further potentiate anticancer effect on bladder cancer cells.  As both extracts have few side/adverse effects, that will be great if the efficacy (anticancer activity) of such combination is synergistically improved.  This may offer another preventative and/or therapeutic option for normal people and patients.
     
 Dr.Konno- New article just published on the -Chemosensitizing Effect of Monk Fruit Extract on Human Bladder Cancer Cells 
​chems-lkt_jct__pub_.pdf

News from the doctors 2023-

Dr. Phillips- 

We're finishing up our ECRIP grant with new trials demonstrating the superiority of nanoparticle based cisplatin therapy over BCG therapy for bladder cancer.  Moving to a clinical trial will require a major effort between academia (us and Hopkins), industry (to make the nanoparticles on a clinical scale), seed money, regulators, and the FDA. So a big step, but we are  starting the process.

Dr. Konno -

We have completed our preliminary work on “Possible anticancer effect of monk fruit extracts against bladder cancer cells”.  Our findings are quite interesting and promising because a couple of monk fruit extracts appear to have such anticancer effect. We are testing the possibility that these monk fruit extracts could be used as an adjuvant agent in current chemotherapy (for bladder cancer patients).  It is possible that they may have so-called “chemosensitizing effect” to improve or potentiate anticancer activity of chemotherapeutic drugs such as cisplatin, mitomycin C, gemcitabine etc. being clinically used today.  A major advantage of this combination of “monk fruit extracts and drugs” is to minimize or even reduce “side effects” (while improving the drug efficacy), which are the serious drawbacks of chemotherapy. 
​
Continue to read news from the doctors 2022-2017 on Archived page

Extracts of maitake mushrooms called the maitake D-fraction (PDF) appear to synergize with vitamin C (VC) in producing an anti-tumor effect. We are currently determining whether there is a tissue- and dose-specific effect of the PDF/VC combination in a controlled murine model. A Phase III trial is being established to determine whether PDF/VC decreases the recurrence and/or progression rate of superficial bladder cancers. The target of PDF/VC appears to be cell cycle regulatory proteins, p21 and p53. We aim to determine whether tumor expression of these two molecules, or the expression of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor-III (FGFR-III) predicts responsiveness to PDF/VC.

HELPFUL SITES AND INFORMATION-

We are working on getting more information from users of Bladder products.Please send us an email or post on Seize the ribbon facebook page to recommend products 


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Did you know: Over 81,000 will be diagnosed with bladder cancer in a year

Signs-Blood in the urine, Painful urination, Urgent need to urinate, Feeling the need but not able to urinate
Symptoms-Abdominal pain, Fatigue, Lower back pain, Appetite or weight loss
 
Risk Factors-Smoking, Race, gender and age, Medical history of cancer, Chronic bladder inflammation


 

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