September Brings Hope On Wheels For Childhood Cancer Patients in Alabama
As part of its September Hope on Wheels Campaign, Hyundai is proud to announce that a research team led by Elizabeth A. Beierle, M.D., who is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and a general surgeon at Children’s of Alabama, has been awarded a $250,000 Hyundai Scholar Grant that will go directly toward the fight against childhood cancer. The aim of Dr. Beierle’s team is to reduce toxicities in children with neuroblastoma and improve their overall outcome through the development of new therapies.
September was National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and the award given to Dr. Bierle’s team is part of a campaign to generate $10.5 million for 45 pediatric cancer research projects at Children’s Oncology Group (COG) member institutions. Since 1998, Hyundai’s Hope on Wheels project has raised over $107 million for the fight against childhood cancer, with the donations being directly distributed to medical and research institutions that are actively involved in developing treatments and improving the lives of patients. Though primary funding for Hope on Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America, we invite everyone who would like to join the fight to contribute. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Hyundai Hope on Wheels exists solely to improve the lives of children with cancer.
For the participants of the award ceremony at Children’s of Alabama, the grant has already brought a day of happiness, as Dr. Beierle’s patients visibly had fun as they left painted handprints across the Hyundai Santa Fe that is used to promote the Hope on Wheels message across the country. Founded in 1911, Children’s of Alabama’s main campus is on the south side of Birmingham, though it operates multiple outpatient and primary care centers throughout Alabama. The recent addition of the Benjamin Russell Hospital for Children to its main campus in Birmingham makes Children’s the third largest children’s hospital in the United States. As home to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s pediatric residency program, it also acts as a teaching hospital.
Rosen Hyundai of Algonquin is proud to be one of the more than 800 Hyundai dealers across the United States that participates in the Hyundai Hope on Wheels program. The impact of this program has even been felt in our immediate area, as Dr. Jiwang Zheng of the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine was earlier awarded a $250,000 grant as part of Hope on Wheel’s commitment to National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Dr. Zheng is engaged in genetic research that can be applied toward treating T-lymphoblastic leukemia.
