Hollywood's Stars Illuminate Stand Up To Cancer's Nationally Televised Fundraising Event September 7

LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) is proud to announce the Hollywood community is once again rallying together and lending its support to the third SU2C primetime television fundraising special on Friday, Sept. 7 (8:00-9:00 PM ET /PT). Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Jessica Biel, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Seth Rogen, Emma Stone, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Tim McGraw and SU2C Co-Founder Katie Couric will all appear in the broadcast which is being executive produced by Paltrow and Joel Gallen of Tenth Planet Productions in collaboration with SU2C's production team.  Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Alicia Keys and Tim McGraw will deliver one-of-a-kind show performances as they join celebrities from film, television and sports to engage viewers with powerful stories and a moving call-to-action.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120822/DC60921-a)

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120822/DC60921-b)

Actors and personalities including Simon Baker, Jordana Brewster, Diem Brown, Dana Delany, Chelsea Handler, Marg Helgenberger, Rashida Jones, Minka Kelly, Joe Manganiello, Jillian Michaels, Masi Oka, Ana Maria Polo, and Alison Sweeney have also been confirmed to participate in the broadcast. Additional stars and performers will be announced in the coming weeks.

This star-studded appeal continues to help build public support for groundbreaking translational research accelerating the delivery of new therapies to patients, getting them from the "bench to the bedside" as quickly as possible. SU2C brings together scientists from different disciplines across various institutions to collaborate.

"I'm honored to be working with such talented artists who are lending their voice to SU2C's mission," said Gallen. "As we continue to plan the 2012 show, there's a hopeful energy building that the groundbreaking research we help fund will make an enormous impact in the fight against cancer."

Gallen has produced three extremely successful televised fundraising specials: "America: A Tribute to Heroes" (after 9/11), "Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast," and "Hope For Haiti Now."  Music was a key element of each. He also produced and directed the "25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert."

As previously announced, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC will donate one hour of simultaneous commercial-free primetime for the nationally televised fundraising special on Friday, Sept. 7, to be broadcast live from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. BIO, E!, ENCORE, HBO, HBO Latino, ION Television, LMN (Lifetime Movie Network), Logo, MLB Network, mun2, Palladia, SHOWTIME, Smithsonian Channel, STARZ, STYLE, TBS and VH1 have also committed to carry the Stand Up To Cancer telecast. The program will include a celebrity phone/multi-media bank that will allow viewers to interact with participating talent. Viewers will also be able to donate via text-to-give and at standup2cancer.org. One hundred percent of all public donations will go directly to cancer research.

The legendary film producer Laura Ziskin, who was a member of the SU2C Executive Leadership Council, executive produced the first two telecasts. Ziskin lived with breast cancer for seven years before it took her life in June of 2011.

SU2C was founded on the belief that we are at a pivotal juncture with the potential for transformative progress in cancer research because of two trends: breakthroughs made in our understanding of the basic science of cancer, and technological advances that enable us to translate them into new treatments. Today's cancer researchers need additional funding to fulfill the promise of life-saving discoveries, and Stand Up To Cancer engages the public to support their work.

The first two SU2C telecasts took place on Sept. 5, 2008 and Sept. 10, 2010, and have been viewed in more than 190 countries. To date, more than $180 million has been pledged for SU2C's innovative cancer research. Since 2008, SU2C has made grants to seven multi-disciplinary "Dream Teams" of researchers as well as to 26 young innovative scientists who are undertaking high-risk, potentially high-reward projects to end the reign of cancer as a leading cause of death in the world today.  Eighty-five institutions are currently involved.

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the world's largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer, is the scientific partner of Stand Up To Cancer. The AACR is responsible for the scientific review, grants administration, and scientific oversight of SU2C research projects in conjunction with the SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee, led by Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., institute professor at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The SU2C funding model has fostered collaboration and innovation, and the unprecedented sharing of ideas and pooling of resources across institutions. Dr. Sharp calls SU2C's revolutionary approach "the best dollar spent on cancer research in the country."

Collectively, the research underway through the SU2C Dream Team projects has the potential to impact the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of cancers in adults and children across ethnicities including pancreatic, breast, ovarian, skin, cervical, uterine, brain, lung, prostate, rectal and colon, leukemia and lymphoma, all of which collectively represent approximately two-thirds of all U.S. cancer deaths.   The following seven Dream Teams have been supported by SU2C: the SU2C Epigenetics Dream Team, the SU2C Pancreatic Cancer Dream Team, the SU2C PI3K Pathway Dream Team, the SU2C Breast Cancer Dream Team, the SU2C Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) Chip Dream Team, the SU2C-MRA Melanoma Dream Team and the SU2C-PCF Prostate Dream Team.  

For more detailed information about the Dream Teams, individual Innovative Research Grants and other Stand Up To Cancer activities, www.standup2cancer.org fosters an online community for everyone affected by cancer, with various ways for people to share opinions and support, view video updates, contribute, and learn of ongoing initiatives and progress in the fight against the disease. Features of the website include The Constellation: for a dollar donation or more, users can launch a star in honor of anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis; The SU2C Blog: diverse content describing cutting-edge research and offering unique perspectives of cancer survivors, researchers, and patient advocates; and The Grassroots Toolkit: providing tools for community members to fundraise through SU2C Teams, Races, Clubs, or Events.

SU2C social media also provides a variety of opportunities to interact with SU2C, support those in the fight, and contribute to SU2C's efforts.  Social channels include a thriving SU2C Facebook community of 850,000 fans, SU2C's YouTube channel with 400 videos, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Crowdrise, and many more. Viewers can begin standing up to cancer now by becoming a fan of SU2C on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/su2c), by following SU2C on Twitter @SU2C (http://twitter.com/su2c), by subscribing to SU2C's YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/su2c)or by following SU2C on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/101641624610817811232.  To view our online tune-in video, please visit http://youtu.be/7O_P_Fr4S1E, which is also available to embed within your blog or site. 

About the Stand Up To Cancer Initiative
Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) -- a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization -- raises funds to hasten the pace of groundbreaking translational research that can get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives. In the fall of 2007, a group of women whose lives have all been affected by cancer in profound ways began working together to marshal the resources of the media and entertainment industries in the fight against this disease.

Members of the SU2C Executive Leadership Council (ELC) include Cancer Advocate and Television Journalist Katie Couric; Sherry Lansing, Chairperson of the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Board of Directors and founder of the Sherry Lansing Foundation; EIF President and CEO Lisa Paulsen; EIF Senior Vice President Kathleen Lobb; Rusty Robertson and Sue Schwartz of the Robertson Schwartz Agency; Pamela Oas Williams, President of Laura Ziskin Productions and Executive Producer of Stand Up To Cancer's In-House Production Team, and Nonprofit Executive Ellen Ziffren. All of the ELC members are co-producers of the 2012 televised special.  The late Laura Ziskin, executive producer of both the Sept. 5, 2008 and Sept. 10, 2010 broadcasts, was also a member of the ELC.  SU2C was formally launched on May 27, 2008. Sung Poblete, Ph.D., R.N., has served as SU2C's president and CEO since 2011.

Founding donor Major League Baseball has provided both financial support and countless opportunities to build the Stand Up To Cancer grassroots movement by encouraging fans all over the country to get involved. 

Other major SU2C donors include Sidney Kimmel, the country's largest individual contributor to cancer research; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Cancer Research Institute; Cancer Treatment Centers of America; Genentech; MasterCard; Melanoma Research Alliance; The Safeway Foundation; Prostate Cancer Foundation; Wallis Annenberg & The Annenberg Foundation; Amgen; GlaxoSmithKline; Pfizer; Oakland A's Owner/Managing Partner Lew Wolff; Comcast; Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); Philips Electronics; Steve Tisch; The Island Def Jam Music Group and many others.

In addition to ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC and numerous cable networks, other significant SU2C supporters include AOL, Bonnier Corporation, Conde Nast Media Group, eBay Inc., Facebook, Hearst Corporation, Hulu, iTunes, Los Angeles Times, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Corporation, The New York Times Company, Rodale, Time Inc, WebMD, Yahoo! and YouTube. For more information, visit www.standup2cancer.org.

About the Entertainment Industry Foundation
Stand Up To Cancer is a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that serves as the collective philanthropy for the television and film businesses. EIF has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars to support programs addressing critical health, education and social issues. For more information, visit www.eifoundation.org.

About the AACR
Founded in 1907, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the world's first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer. AACR's membership includes 34,000 laboratory, translational and clinical researchers; population scientists; other health care professionals; and cancer advocates residing in more than 90 countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise of the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, biology, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. As the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer, the AACR provides expert peer review, grants administration and scientific oversight of individual and team science grants in cancer research that have the potential for near-term patient benefit. The AACR actively communicates with legislators and policymakers about the value of cancer research and related biomedical science in saving lives from cancer.  For more information about the AACR, visit www.AACR.org.