“We work until our bones hurt.”

This statement was uttered by a leading prostate cancer researcher at the end of a four hour meeting on a snowy December night at M. D. Anderson in Houston. Teal Sewards, Director of Development, and I had driven from Austin to Houston earlier that day to meet with Christopher Logothetis, MD, Chair of Genitourinary Medical Oncology; Wadih Arap, MD, PhD, Deputy Chairman; and Renata Pasqualini, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology. It was an exhilarating meeting after an exhausting trip, but their passion and that of others like them is what fuels our search for world-class medical and scientific research and our insistence on funding it.

The Foundation is deeply grateful for its generous supporters who collectively contributed just over $1 million to the Foundation in 2008. This was a significant milestone for the Foundation’s fourth year. In 2008, support was continued for two Pelican Fellows performing prostate cancer research: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the University of California’s Institute for Quantitative Biosciences in San Francisco. Both institutions are doing significant magnetic resonance prostate cancer imaging research. Their annual reports are summarized elsewhere in this report and links are provided to the detailed papers on this website.

The Sir Peter and Lady Michael Foundation also funded and participated in the Pelican Prostate Cancer Colloquium. This bi-annual colloquium, hosted by Sir Peter, brings together international prostate cancer researchers to present their findings and collaborate on future research. Researchers from MSK and UCSF were in attendance and presented papers. The next Pelican Prostate Cancer Colloquium is planned for New York in May 2010.

The Foundation is on a quest to discover and underwrite the most promising tools and technologies for the treatment, management and cure of prostate cancer. Our goal is to serve as a catalyst in achieving true medical breakthroughs that are effective, innovative, significant, and newsworthy.

We are enacting what we call the Best-of-Class Prostate Cancer Research Investment Strategy, a disciplined, focused approach for supporting high potential prostate cancer research opportunities. There are four steps in the process—sourcing, vetting, funding and tracking.

The first step, sourcing of research investment opportunities, is a continuous process of pro-actively searching for innovative, high potential prostate cancer research projects at the leading hospitals, universities and life sciences venture capital firms.

Vetting, the second step, is performed by the Board of Advisors, two of whom are oncologists, in order to be sure that the research opportunities meet our strategic guidelines, are scientifically valid and medically relevant.

Projects that pass muster with the Board of Advisors are then submitted to the Board of Directors for funding consideration. Approved projects are generally supported for a four year period. Support comes from fundraising events, individual contributions, and grants. Tracking of research progress comes through an annual report required of each institution that is distributed to both Boards and shared with our supporters. In addition, each institution is required to attend the bi-annual Pelican Prostate Cancer Colloquium, where the results are shared and discussed among a wider international group of medical and scientific professionals.

We feel our investment approach works. Our experience at M.D. Anderson is evidence of its positive outcome, as is true with our experience at the Stanford University Medical Center. There we met with Dr. Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD, and Chief of Nuclear Medicine. Sam is in charge of Molecular Imaging Scholars Program and has given us a proposal on “theranostics”. Sam stated:

"The future of patient care for most forms of cancer will be based on Theranostics – an emerging field which relies on the combination and consequent synergy of state-of-the-art, multimodality molecular-imaging for diagnosis with high specificity molecularly-targeted therapeutics. By combining these two fields, diagnostics and therapeutics, we intend to revolutionize cancer patient management."

A valued, long time supporter has made a generous contribution that will fund the first year of the Stanford work. We similarly hope to find a supporter or supporters to fund the M.D. Anderson work. In addition, life sciences venture capitalists have already referred three interesting prostate cancer research opportunities to us for vetting in 2009.

Foundation Staff:
Walter B. Menzel, Executive Director
Jenny Koehler, Executive Assistant


Office Address
Peter Michael Foundation
1 Gate Six Road
Building B, Suite 201
Sausalito, CA 94965
415-339-0400 office
415-999-7654 Walter mobile