Palisadian Alexandra Landes has joined the Board of Directors at the nation’s only nonprofit dedicated exclusively to cell and gene therapies for cancer, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, Inc. (ACGT). Landes lost her mother, Wendy Landes, to a rare cancer, liposarcoma, and is committed to uncovering innovative methods for treating cancer with reduced side effects.
ACGT, based in Connecticut, funds top physicians and researchers at medical institutions in the US and Canada. The foundation supports a number of gene therapy treatments including immunotherapy, which activates patients’ own immune systems to battle cancerous cells. Recently, the FDA granted “fast-track status” to an immunotherapy treatment for leukemia for which ACGT provided early funding. ACGT has given almost $25 million in grants to researchers since its founding in 2001.
Photo courtesy of Alexandra Landes
Twenty-eight-year-old Landes is executive director of Wendy Walk, a national nonprofit named for her late mother that has raised $2 million since 2010 to combat liposarcoma. Landes is an accomplished development professional who has held leadership and board positions at the Metropolitan Council, Seeds of Peace and the NYC Public Advocates Office.
“Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy’s goal of making cancer a treatable, manageable disease is so compelling,” Landes said. “Our current options for battling cancer take a distressing toll on patients – it’s encouraging to know less harrowing methods are becoming available.”
In addition to supporting ACGT, Wendy Walk has also funded six grants for the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative over the past five years.
“Wendy Walk allows us to fund all different kinds of research and we are excited to include ACGT as one of our beneficiaries,” Landes said. “As medicine has been evolving, we wanted to heavily invest in gene therapy because so many other cancers have started seeing good results using these methods instead of traditional chemo.”
Landes connected with a current board member from ACGT who attended the Wendy Walk and introduced Landes to the organization.
“There was an organic connection and I had been hearing good things about the organization from people with personal connections,” she said. “While my mom was alive she was really impressed by the findings about genetic therapies that ACGT had for lymphoma and leukemia. I feel a responsibility to find different kinds of research and push it along. They are very focused on making sure there is a clinical trial at the end of the research, and that’s very important to me.”
WALKING TALL
Wendy Walk was started six years ago and was largely made up of friends and family. It has now grown to include walks all over the country.
“What makes me excited to keep doing it as Wendy’s daughter is the fact that we are honoring and fighting for other families now,” Landes said. “At the walks, it’s not just my mom’s supporters. There are four to five families represented at each of the walks, fighting for a cure to a rare cancer. That’s really meaningful.”
Wendy Walk was started not only to support those affected by the rare cancer, but also to increase awareness. Landes said that her initial research didn’t yield anything positive on the Internet for liposarcoma. The walk has contributed to changing the dialogue, moving away from a dark, negative conversation and toward a more encouraging account.
“We find that we’re changing the landscape to have more hope and an overall wellness. My mom’s take was, ‘I might only have one lung, but I’m going to ski.’ She wasn’t defined or stopped by her disease,” Landes said. “We’ve taken that approach and tried to mainstream it so that all people can get that inspiration from her.”
PALISADIANS STEP UP
“The Palisades is the perfect community for Wendy Walk. Palisadians can get out there and walk and we need a lot of volunteers to spread awareness. If you live in the Palisades, it’s very easy to get involved,” Landes said. “We rely so heavily on volunteers.”
In addition to the 30 volunteers in each city that make the walk happen, volunteers with professional skills in communication, design, organization, fundraising, photography, videography, finance and more are needed before the event.
“If you have a medical or science background, that’s very helpful to us in explaining the research. If you’re a videographer or a photographer, we need you. High school and middle school students can earn community service hours. There’s something for everyone,” Landes said, adding that a number of stores in the Palisades have given donations to Wendy Walk in the past.
“It’s really beautiful and really generous,” she said.
The 6th annual Wendy Walk will take place April 26, 2015 on Santa Monica Beach. Visit wendywalk.org for more information.
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