Cannonball Kids’ cancer Foundation, a local foundation geared toward funding pediatric research on childhood cancer, donated $25,000 to Nemours Children’s Health System. The donation will be used to fund basic research in figuring out if the Zika virus can fully cure hepatoblastoma, a common liver tumor found in early childhood. Melissa Wiggins, executive director of Cannonball Kids’ cancer, met with Dr. Tamarah Westmoreland, a pediatric general thoracic surgeon at Nemours Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Kenneth Alexander, who is chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Nemours Children’s Hospital.

Hepatoblastoma is generally removed surgically. However, this treatment is not enough if the cancer has already spread. The lab team tested the interaction between the hepatoblastoma cells and Zika. Dr. Westmoreland concluded, “Zika viruses may be an effective tool to fight many childhood cancers. If, as our data suggests, CD24 is indeed a major determinant of what cancers would be killed by Zika viruses, then we have reasons to be very optimistic because many pediatric cancers (and, indeed, many adult cancers) express CD24.”

Cannonball Kids cancer (CKc) was formed by Michael and Melissa Wiggins in 2014. Their son, Cannon Wiggins, was diagnosed with stage IV high-risk neuroblastoma when he was 20 months old. During the process of receiving treatment, they discovered how little research was done in curing childhood cancer. Melissa said medical treatment involved using adult treatments of cancer to help crack the code for children. The options for children were much more limited when compared to the treatments and research devoted to adulthood cancer.

The Wiggins took it into their own hands to find ways to fund the needed research. Melissa said they started by selling a t-shirt online. Shortly after, she wrote a book called, Thankful for the Fight. It was in regards to Cannon’s journey battling cancer. The book was put online for sale, and money was raised that way. “Once we reached that first thousand [dollars], that’s when we wrote a research grant,” said Melissa. To raise even more money, they began to organize and host galas.

Since then, CKc has given out a total of 13 research grants. The foundation has stirred up more than $800,000 in research funding. A press release sent out by CKc stated, “The grants are providing up to 60 children with access to bench-to-bedside treatments that could help give the chance to live to children who have previously been told there was nothing more to be done to save them.”

All of the research done by the Nemours research team will be performed right here in Lake Nona in the biosafety vivarium at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. An editor’s note on the press release says that the “c” in cancer in the name of the foundation is purposely lowercase. They want to give cancer an “inferior status.”