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Posts in the ‘Giving Back’ category

GHAR’s Pam Steele is ‘Kickin Cancer’ in the Relay for Life

Posted on April 17th, 2012 by The Firm

We’re proud of our own Pam Steele, who is participating in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life – a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease.

At Relay for Life, teams of people camp out at a local school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events that last up to 24 hours.

You can join Pam’s team, or make a donation to help the American Cancer Society create a world with less cancer and more birthdays. Together, we can help make sure that cancer never steals another year of anyone’s life!

Pam will be participating at the Relay for life in Collinsville, IL on Friday, May 18, 2012. Opening Ceremony begins at 6pm at Dorris Intermediate School.
Support Pam’s team, ‘Kickin Cancer’ here.

Every day, the American Cancer Society helps us stay well by preventing cancer or finding it at its earliest, most treatable stages. They assist families in finding the best resources to help their friend or loved one deal with a diagnosis and their journey to get well. The American Cancer Society is also rallying communities through events like Relay For Life, to fight back and find cures for this disease.

Help families get a fresh start – GHAR & Phoenix Crisis Center

Posted on April 13th, 2012 by Katie A. Hubbard

GHAR is proud to be a sponsor of the Phoenix Crisis Center 14th Annual Trivia Night and Silent Auction. We hope you join us for this fun and important event on Saturday, March April 21, 2012 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Granite City, IL. It will be an evening of trivia, prizes and more benefiting families in need.

The Phoenix Crisis Center’s mission is to shelter families from violence. They work to empower women and children impacted by domestic violence to live safely, independently and free from further violence. Located in Granite City, their domestic violence shelter is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing an emergency hotline, shelter, counseling, education, children’s services, legal advocacy and other supportive services.

This is a worthwhile cause that depends each and every year on the generosity of others. There are many ways you can participate: To attend Trivia Night, tables of eight players are available for $120 per table. The doors open at 6:00 pm and the fun starts at 7:00 pm. If you are not interested in playing, there are sponsorship opportunities available, including $100 trivia round sponsors and $500 event sponsors.

If you have any further questions visit www.phoenixcrisiscenter.org or feel free to contact The Phoenix Crisis Center’s Jennifer Kelley at 618-451-4267 or Rachael Friedel at 618-781-4102. We’ll see you there!

GHAR helps SOAR support local students

Posted on March 5th, 2012 by The Firm

Goldenberg Heller Antognoli & Rowland is proud to once again be a sponsor of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) Chapter 34-7-2, helping to benefit their scholarship fund at their annual Awards Banquet on June 16, 2012.

This year, the SOAR scholarship will be open to area high school seniors, who will compete for a $1,000 grant to fund the aid in the support of their studies.

SOAR will also recognize a “Friend of SOAR” at the Awards Banquet who has led the charge for the working and retired workers. They will also recognize the most active members and other volunteers in the community who are making the organization strong and effective.

The Banquet will be held at the Neighborhood Social Club in Pontoon Beach, IL. This casual event will feature a catered dinner, prizes, and raffles. Tickets are $20/single or $35/couple in advance and $25/40 at the door; a table for 6 is $115. You can also make a direct contribution to SOAR. Visit http://www.soar7-34-2.org/ or call 618-452-1130.

GHAR Sponsors Price of Freedom Gala to aid wounded military members

Posted on February 13th, 2012 by The Firm

GHAR is once again proud to sponsor the Joshua Chamberlain Society in its second annual Price of Freedom Gala on February 18, 2012. Held at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in St. Louis, the Price Of Freedom Gala is a military-inspired evening at a Marine Mess Night to benefit the Joshua Chamberlain Society’s efforts of providing aid for severely wounded military service members and the families of killed-in-action members of our military.

The evening will honor current JCS heroes as it raises funds to support additional heroes. The formal evening will include silent and live auctions, a seated dinner and a premium open bar.

For more information on the Price of Freedom Event visit http://www.priceoffreedomgala.org/

Please visit the Joshua Chamberlain Society at http://www.chamberlainsociety.org/ to learn more about this extraordinary organization and to help donate to aid severely wounded military service members and the families of killed-in-action members of our military who sacrificed all in our service.

View the 2012 event program here:
jcs2012programfinal

The Power of Volunteering, and Giving Children a Voice

Posted on December 26th, 2011 by Tina Italiano

For a little over two years, I have been a volunteer for Voices for Children – the CASA program in the City of St. Louis. The mission of the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association, together with its state and local members, is to support and promote court-appointed volunteer advocacy for abused and neglected children so they can thrive in safe, permanent homes.

I chose to volunteer because I wanted to do something to help out in the community and I knew I wanted to work with kids. In order to be appointed as a CASA advocate, you have to be committed to the cause – you must complete a 16-hour training course and be sworn in by the Judge. CASA advocates dedicate their hearts and minds to improving life for children in St. Louis, maintaining the child welfare system’s focus on the child. It’s my responsibility to provide the court a full picture of a child’s life and recommend what I think is best for him or her. CASA advocates can truly change the lives of abused children by helping them move from foster care to safe, stable homes where they have a chance for a brighter future.

Here’s an example of how a case can unfold: my very first case involved an infant who was left in a car on a hot summer day, as his mother passed out from drug use. Once the child was taken into custody by Children’s Division and placed into relative foster care (with a Great Aunt), the Court became his legal guardian.

The main goal, as with any case, is reunification with the child’s biological parent(s). In order to do that, the parent(s) is/are required to complete Court required services. In addition to a parenting course and psychological evaluation, this child’s mother needed to complete drug rehabilitation. She was in and out of several programs, but kept relapsing. She finally determined that she was not and would not be in a good place to raise her child. Currently, she has found a program that is working for her, but she still granted permission for the child’s Great Aunt to have guardianship so that he could get out of the Children’s Division custody. If, in the future, the mother is able to provide a stable, healthy lifestyle, she can petition the court for custody of the child.

During this entire process, the CASA advocates “speaks” for the child – giving them a voice in all critical decisions affecting their well being while in foster care.

It’s been a rewarding experience, and I’m glad I decided to volunteer my time. If you would like more information on Voices for Children, or are interested in volunteering or becoming a CASA advocate, visit their website at www.voices-stl.org.

World-renown diabetes researcher Dr. Camillo Ricordi speaks at GHAR-sponsored event

Posted on October 13th, 2011 by Thomas P. Rosenfeld

We were proud to welcome Dr. Camillo Ricordi to the Missouri Cures event, for a special presentation on his continued research for a cure for diabetes.

Dr. Ricordi, the University of Miami’s Scientific Director and Chief Academic Officer of the Diabetes Research Institute, discussed his work as one of the world’s leading scientists in cell transplantation and diabetes research.

Dr. Ricordi is known world-wide for inventing the Ricordi® Chamber, a device that isolates large numbers of insulin-producing, or islet, cells from the human pancreas for transplantation into diabetes patients. He has performed the first series of clinical islet transplants that reversed diabetes after implantation of donor purified islets into the livers of diabetics. This procedure is now used worldwide by laboratories performing clinical islet transplants (and for you television fans, was even featured on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy). Dr. Ricordi has also authored more than 600 scientific publications and has been awarded 11 patents. Today, his goal is to develop a cure for type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Ricordi recently answered questions that shed some light on what drove him to research diabetes, how he came to envision the Ricordi Chamber, and how he approaches the ethical issues surrounding the transplantation of embryonic stem cells.

Having trained as a surgeon, how did you become interested in diabetes as a research topic?

“Before the residency in surgery I graduated from medical school with a thesis on diabetes and spent 2 years volunteering as a medical student in the major diabetes institute in Italy, which was then at H. San Raffaele Institute in Milan. When I then switched to surgery, my little cousin Serena from Italy was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Transplantation in diabetes and cure focused research became quickly my professional life’s mission. I see cellular therapies and regenerative medicine as the future of transplantation and believe one day we will not need to perform organ transplants any longer but prevent and treat organ failure with cells, stem cells and other regenerative strategies.“

The device you invented, the Ricordi Chamber, isolates islet cells from the pancreas for transplantation, thus allowing people with diabetes to begin producing insulin. How did you first envision this method and how long did it take you to create a working model?

“My early research work after the medical degree was to isolate large numbers of intact insulin producing cells from the pancreas to obtain enough insulin producing cells to reverse diabetes after transplantation. I soon realized that all methods used then (in the 80s’) were very traumatic, including the one then used in Dr. Paul E. Lacy’s laboratories at Wash U, which was based on a sort of a meat grinder modified and renamed “tissue macerator”. The idea to separate pancreatic islets (microscopic structures containing the insulin producing cells) using a non-traumatic technology to “disassemble” the pancreas came to me when I was still in Italy immediately after medical school. My university hospital did not have the resources or infrastructure to support the development of the idea, but they allowed me to go to the number one center in the world in this field, which was then Washington University in St. Louis, where the “father” of islet isolation and transplantation was working, Prof. Paul E. Lacy.”

Briefly, how does the Ricordi Chamber work?

“The Ricordi method, whose heart is represented by a chamber, consists in a full immersion, continuous flow process through a chamber of a solution of enzymes that are also injected in the organ through a network of ducts that deliver the “disassembling” enzymes all over the exocrine pancreas (98% of the organ that works to produce digestive enzymes and juices draining them in the intestinal tract), but without arriving directly to the endocrine islets that are instead “plugged” into the vascular system (but not to the ductal tree). As the digestion process begins inside the chamber by progressive heating of the solution containing the enzymes to active them (these enzymes work better at temperatures close to 37oC), a screen retain the undigested pancreas for further enzymatic /mechanical gentle disassembling action inside the chamber, while a constant flow “rescues” the progressively released islets that can pass through the screen and are therefore saved from any further enzymatic action by cooling and dilution.”

When it became clear that the Ricordi Chamber was effective, what did you consider as next steps toward its wider use?

“When I realized the utility of the method and the chamber and we made the first successful clinical islet transplants, I begin to freely distribute the blue prints of the system and collaborated with all scientists, surgeons, physicians and groups who were willing to join the battle for the cure of diabetes. Still today, I renounced to any economic benefit, royalty or other compensation that could derive from the diffusion, distribution and teaching of the Ricordi method. This allowed everyone to access the technology and contribute improvements over the years, very much with an “open source” and collaborative approach that characterize all my research activities, from the Diabetes Research Institute Federation to the newly established Cure Focus Research Alliance.”

How many patients have been treated with the Ricordi Chamber to date and what progress are you making with the issues surrounding rejection of the implanted cells?

“Around 1,000 patients worldwide have been treated so far with this method. The procedure is still experimental and the results have been progressively improving over the past two decades, with now long term function of the transplanted islets being similar to that of a pancreas (whole organ) transplant. A multicenter FDA Phase III trial is now undergoing in North America and Europe to move islet transplantation as an approved, reimbursable procedure for patients with the most severe cases of Type 1 Diabetes. However, the requirement for treatment of the recipients with anti-rejection drugs severely limits the number of patients that can now benefit from this procedure, as the possible risks and side effects of immunosuppression must be carefully evaluated against the benefits of the islet transplant. All research is now concentrating on methods to avoid the use of continuous recipient immunosuppression, from tissue engineering and local immunomodulation strategies, to methods to re-educate the immune system not to attack the transplanted islet cells and nano-scale or conformal coating barrier technologies, to physically protect the transplanted cells from the immune attack.”

One possible source of cells for transplantation are embryonic stem cells, yet there are many ethical issues surrounding their use. How do you approach this and you working on alternative strategies as well?

“Once transplantation without immunosuppression will be successful it will be impossible to meet the demand for insulin producing cells to treat patients with diabetes worldwide. There are now a little over 1,500/year suitable pancreases from deceased organ donors that could be used for transplantation in the US. With 24 million patients in the US alone and 300 million worldwide (growing to become over 500 million in the next two decades) this treatment would risk to become like winning a lottery in the absence of an adequate source of insulin producing cells. Human stem cells offer more than a hope at this point, since they have been already successfully converted into insulin producing cells and have successfully treated experimental models of diabetes. With a patient dying every 4 seconds, any deliberate obstacle opposing and delaying cure-focused research could be considered criminal. Like in organ transplantation you can discuss the sources of organ or tissues to be transplanted. For example we condemn and do not allow transplantation of organs from executed prisoners, practices still performed in other continents, but we now all agree on the need and usefulness to transplant organs. Similarly, when we receive a heart from a deceased donor, we do not necessarily endorse the cause of death, which could be suicide or the result of driving under the influence. Still, the moment an organ or tissue becomes available it would be criminal not to use it to save, for example, a child dying from heart failure. In the same context, while I understand that some groups of people can support or oppose abortion, no informed human being should oppose rescuing cells from a trash can following in vitro fertilization (cells that will never, ever have a chance to become a human life, which so far has required in-vivo implantation in a uterus). One could oppose in-vitro fertilization, but once this is recognized as a legal and legitimate practice, the excess unused cells that are thrown away after life has been already successfully achieved, should and must be used if they can lead us one step closer to the cure of diseases now afflicting humankind. As human beings and as a physician, not doing this would be unethical and in my view, criminal. The reason an ever decreasing number of people still opposes stem cell research is because they are not informed appropriately or they do not think at the consequences of their actions two steps ahead.”

Where do you see diabetes treatment in five years? You’ve been very vocal about ultimately curing diabetes. What’s your prediction for making this happen?

“I have no doubt that the cure for diabetes, like the cure of many other devastating disease conditions is within our reach. However, I am also deeply aware that an increasing number of regulatory, political, religious, economic, academic and institutional impediments are creating barriers to innovation and to the development of cures in our Country. To overcome these barriers we have recently formed the Cure Focus Research Alliance, but given the current limitations, we can only work with as much intensity and dedication as we can. A cure could indeed be within the next 5 years, but we cannot generate hype or spread false hope, as we are fully aware that it could take even more than 10 years. The difference in how long it will take to get to a cure will largely depend on how effective we’ll be in overcoming the barriers to innovation and the development of cures. For example we have begun by braking the barriers to collaborative international research programs, through the expansion of the Telescience platform technology that now allow as assemble collaborative project teams across oceans that could work like if they are physically in the same lab, looking at the same microscope, working shoulder to shoulder at the same bench, or brainstorming together to overcome the next challenge.

“Besides funding and milestone based management of cure focused research programs, one of the major obstacles towards the development of cures is the public misconception that whether or not we’ll get to a cure in the fastest and most efficient way possible will largely depend on what they, we, do collectively in the next 5-10 years, not just the scientists, not the NIH, for sure not the FDA or the big Multinational Pharmaceutical companies.

“To give a practical example, I like to say ‘5 to 10 years from now you (or your child) will be diagnosed with a now incurable disease. Your chances to cure it and survive will depend on what happens between now and then’.

“Don’t wait for a tragedy to affect you or your family to open your eyes to what we need to do and how much we need to work together as a team. All polarizing ideologies and views are generally wrong and based on emotions rather than reasoning and truth. It was the case when medicine and science were halted because of the dogma that illness and terminal diseases were a punishment from God, for sins committed in this life. It would be a similar mistake to delay the applications of stem cell research and regenerative medicine now, when we are facing epidemics of unprecedented proportions that feed a market that in the US alone represents 2.5 trillion/year of healthcare costs, already over 16% of the GDP and projected to become 4.4 trillion/year by 2018. Why I understand there could be strong economic interests opposing the development of cures, opposition to stem cell research from the very same people who will benefit from them should not be a factor and I would predict that reasoning and information will soon prevail over misinformation and emotionally charged propagandas.”

Read more about the Missouri Cures Event here. If you have any questions, please contact Thomas P. Rosenfeld.

A race to shelter women and children from violence

Posted on July 22nd, 2011 by Katie A. Hubbard

I’m a proud board member of the Phoenix Crisis Center – a domestic violence shelter and service provider located in Granite City, IL. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the Phoenix Crisis Center provides emergency shelter, hotlines, counseling, education, children’s services, criminal justice advocacy and other supportive services. Its shelter helps to empower women and children impacted by domestic violence to live safely, independently and free from further violence.

Goldenberg Heller Antognoli & Rowland is sponsoring the Phoenix Crisis Center’s 6^th Annual 5K Freedom Run/ 1 mi Walk to celebrate freedom from domestic violence. All event proceeds will benefit the Center.

Phoenix Crisis Center’s 5 K Freedom Run

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Wilson Park Ice Rink in Granite City, IL

For more event info, contact phoenixcrisiscenter@gmail.com

For more info on GHAR’s role with Phoenix Crisis Center, contact Katie A Hubbard.

GHAR partner Robert D. Rowland nominated to TouchPoint Board

Posted on March 24th, 2011 by The Firm

GHAR is very proud to announce that partner Robert D. Rowland has been nominated and confirmed as the newest member to the TouchPoint Board. TouchPoint’s mission is to make a real difference in the quality of life for children, adults and their families dealing with autism, wherever they may live.

Since 1970, TouchPoint Autism Services has provided excellent training for professionals, parents and families with children with autism, gaining them an excellent and well deserved reputation. TouchPoint provides residential services, employment support services, family support, recreational programs and respite care.

TouchPoint has more than 500 employees, a $15 million budget, 30 residential homes and seven locations across the state of Missouri – annually serving more than 2,700 people with autism spectrum disorders and their families.

1 in 100 babies born every day are diagnosed with autism. Visit http://www.touchpointautism.org today to see how you can get involved and help make a difference for individuals across the spectrum, throughout every stage of their lives.

Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) Awards Banquet

Posted on May 20th, 2010 by The Firm

Goldenberg Heller Antognoli & Rowland, P.C. is proud to sponsor SOAR (Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees). SOAR will hold their first awards banquet on June 12, 2010.

SOAR will award a scholarship to a high school senior, as well as recognize some very important people to their organization.

For more information, please visit www.soar7-34-2.org.