of the Jewish Hospice & Chaplaincy Network

Join us for the Michigan premiere
of filmmaker Keith Famie's
documentary

The Embrace of Aging

The female perspective of growing old

Fifth-graders Max and Samuel study the fluorescent cancer cell.

A must-see
for men, too!

Ann Arbor day school students go to
lab to learn about pancreatic cancer.

Sixteen months of filming capturing the lives of
women from the countryside of Provence to the
small villages of Okinawa to the mountaintops in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming to the bedside of breast
cancer patients.

Laurie Leflein

Special to the Jewish News

W

hat do jellyfish and
cancer cells have in com-
mon?
The Hebrew Day School of Ann
Arbor's fifth-grade class learned
the answer to that question when
they visited Dr. Diane Simeone's
University of Michigan Pancreatic
Cancer Lab.
What, might you ask, are a bunch
of fifth-graders doing in a pancreatic
cancer lab? Last fall, the HDS Student
Council began researching worthy
causes to target for this year's fundrais-
ing efforts. The children researched
many different organizations, and
in the end, they voted to support Dr.
Simeone's lab. The children chose pan-
creatic cancer because they realized
that not only is pancreatic cancer one
of the worst cancers to get in terms
of survival rates, it is also one of the
worst in terms of research funding.
Students were
intrigued by an
afternoon of hands-
on learning led by
a talented interdis-
ciplinary team of
Ph.D.s, graduate
students, engineers
Dr. Diane
and experts in corn-
Simeone
puter modeling, who
bring together many
types of expertise to tackle the prob-
lem of pancreatic cancer. They quickly
learned that Dr. Simeone is not only
passionate about finding a cure for
pancreatic cancer, she is also passion-
ate about engaging young minds in
scientific research.
Dr. Simeone presented a short lec-
ture on the role of the pancreas in the
body, pancreatic cancer biology and
statistics, efforts to find earlier diag-
nosis techniques, and more effective
medicines to treat this cancer.
Another physician poked his head
out of his office to talk to the children
about how he uses the computer to
fight cancer. His area of expertise is
in experimental therapeutics, where
scientists have a virtual library of 10

BRAVA, ANDI!

Join the
Jewish Hospice & Chaplaincy Network's
Grand Circle of Women
as we bestow the inaugural Dove Award to

Andi Wolfe

Thursday, May 15, 2014

THE BERMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

6:00 p.m.

PATRON DINNER • SPONSORSHIPS FROM $180

7:30 p.m.

MOVIE SCREENING • AFTERGLOW DESSERT • TICKETS: 5 36

GCOW CHAIR

EVENT CO-CHAIRS

Dana Burnstein

Patti Aaron

Sandy Muskovitz Danto
Paula Glazier
Sue Ellen Kaufman

Linda Kovan
Reva Rosen
Terri Farber Roth
Forest Wolfe

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LIVE WELL. AGE WELL.

OR

AS ANDI LIKES TO SAY, "Woo-Hoo! WHAT A RIDE!"

The

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EWISH SPICE

& CHAPLAINCY NETWORK -

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24 April 24 • 2014

iu —

Dr. Lidong Wang looks on as
students Eli and Saphira take turns
examining cells in the microscope.

million anti-cancer compounds and
can use computer modeling to develop
specialized drugs to target and fight a
particular cancer based on its specific
genetic mutations.
The children saw firsthand the dif-
ference between normal and cancerous
cells under a microscope. They also
saw fluorescent cancer cells. One stu-
dent asked, "If you know the environ-
ment the tumor cells like to grow in,
why can't you change that environment
so they can't grow anymore?"
The HDS Student Council has raised
more than $1,000 for pancreatic cancer
research by collecting cans, food sales,
receiving a $100 grant, a penny wagon
and additional donations. The children
learned many lessons from their suc-
cessful fundraising efforts. The biggest
lessons were you are never too young
to practice tikkun olam (repairing the
world), everyone together can make a
difference in this devastating disease,
and anything is possible when people
are passionate about a cause.
So what do a jellyfish and cancer
cells have in common?
By removing the protein from a
jellyfish that enables it to glow in the
dark and infusing it into cancer cells,
researchers can better visualize the
cells and their behavior.

❑

Laurie Leflein is mother of HDS alumni
Jacob, Elana and Shoshana Leflein and
fifth-grader Ali