"In an 11-month period of time, both Randy and I were diagnosed with cancer — Randy with Stage IV Hodgkin's and me with Stage 1, Clarks level 2 melanoma," says Roseann Giovanatto-Shaver, executive director of the Randy Shaver Celebrity Golf Classic. "We are advocates of the exciting approach to medicine at the University of Minnesota and it is our privilege to fund clinical trials at the Masonic Cancer Center."

Donations from the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund help support the efforts of several Masonic Cancer Center researchers to find better treatments. Among these allocated donations, the Randy Shaver Fund is supporting a pioneering phase II clinical trial investigating the large multivalent immunogen (LMI) vaccine to treat melanoma. The vaccine has been both developed and tested at the Masonic Cancer Center. Jeffrey Miller, M.D., and Matthew Mescher, Ph.D., researchers at the Masonic Cancer Center, developed the LMI vaccine. Arek Dudek, M.D., Ph.D., is the principal investigator for the upcoming phase II clinical trial, as well as for the previous phase I/II clinical trial that used a version of the LMI vaccine created from cells from the patient's own tumor.

The first trial's promising results have led to further research. The vaccine was prepared in the first trial by surgically removing a patient's tumor and breaking it down into a single cell. The cell membranes were then deposited on a small bead resembling the size of an immune cell and injected into the patient to activate his or her immune response.

The second clinical trial will couple the LMI vaccine with a genetically engineered cancer cell, instead of a cell from the patient's own tumor. This approach has several advantages, including the ability to produce a purer cell line and to manufacture larger amounts of the vaccine. It also will allow for better monitoring of the patient's immune response.

"An 'off-the-shelf' vaccine versus an autogenous vaccine allows us to produce greater amounts to treat a larger number of patients," says Miller. "It also allows us to give each patient multiple vaccinations over time, which will potentially result in a better response."

Miller notes that in research, "There is a mid-point process that is difficult to get funded by federal grants, but it's a point necessary to move experimental therapy forward. Philanthropy makes these expensive mid-point processes possible."