The UNMC Eppley Cancer Center has been chosen as the recipient of the 2003 distribution of the Shrike-Hlavac Memorial Trust. Money from the trust will go toward “seed money” for innovative research ideas.
“These funds are essential in obtaining larger grants from such national funding agencies as the National Cancer Institute,” said Ken Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center. “We are certainly very appreciative of all of the support we have received from the trust, as these funds are extremely important in our quest to find cures to deadly cancer diseases.”
UNMC researchers, via the NU Foundation, have received gifts from the trust since 2001. The Shrike-Hlavac Memorial Trust has gifted more than $100,000 to UNMC, and as such, was placed on the Wall of Honor, near the second-floor escalators in the Durham Outpatient Center.
Maxwell Eugene Shrike, a former resident of Stromsburg, Neb., created the Shrike-Hlavac Memorial Trust. Shrike was a career Air Force veteran who used his savings to create the trust for the express purpose of providing funding to support research to cure heart disease, cancer and leukemia. His mother’s maiden name was Hlavac, hence the name of the trust. Shrike died in 1995. Pursuant to his wishes, Cornerstone Bank, which has served Central Nebraska for more than 100 years, succeeded him as trustee.
“The cancer and heart research being done by the Eppley Cancer Center and the University of Nebraska Medical Center serves as a living testimony to Mr. Shrike,” said Richard McDougall, vice president and manager of the Cornerstone Trust Division. “Cornerstone is honored to serve as trustee for the Shrike-Hlvac Memorial Trust and is confident that the pioneering work being done by Dr. Cowan and Dr. Zucker is the type of research Mr. Shrike intended for the trust to fund.”
Irving Zucker, Ph.D., the Theodore F. Hubbard, M.D., professor of cardiovascular research and chairman of the department of physiology and biophysics at UNMC, said that money from the trust has assisted his research in a couple of areas. One example, he said, involves heart arrhythmia, in which researchers are studying the malfunction of protein channels across cell membranes. Another project involves studying the effects of exercise on individuals with heart damage. After heart failure is simulated in rabbits, researchers have found that consistent exercise has a positive effect. The mechanism involves an enzyme found in the brain that controls nerve activity to the heart and blood vessels.