STAR Act funding helps all survivors
Your participation helped us get $8.5 million in STAR Act funding
The LTFU Study has received $8.5 million in funding through the STAR (Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research) Act. Your participation in the LTFU Study has helped us push for more research to continue helping childhood cancer survivors.
The original STAR Act was enacted in 2018. It directed the National Cancer Institute to use $28 million to expand childhood cancer research efforts in biobanking/ biospecimens and survivorship through 2023. Biospecimens are materials from the human body, such as tissue and blood, which can be used for cancer research. They are stored in biobanks. Biospecimens are made available for scientists to study.
In 2023, Congress reauthorized the STAR Act through 2028.
Our new funding will help us learn more through genetic testing of breast, thyroid, and brain tumors that are common in survivors. This testing helps scientists learn more about mistakes in DNA that lead to cancer.
Part of the STAR ACT-funded research involves collecting blood samples from LTFU participants. So far, more than 1,500 people have given samples. Each person receives $100 in thanks.
With these samples and STAR Act support, we hope to learn more about how cancer therapy affects the methylation of survivors' DNA. Methylation is a chemical change in DNA that can happen after cancer treatment.
These new resources may also help us understand why survivors appear to age faster than those who did not have cancer. We hope that findings from this research made possible by STAR Act funding will help us find more ways to keep survivors healthy as they age.