A Marriage of Music and Medicine

By Cynthia Floyd Manley

As the crow flies, the distance between the scientists at Vanderbilt and the artists on Nashville’s world-famous Music Row can be measured in yards.

But in the early 1990s, it might as well have been light years. The two didn’t know each other, and they certainly didn’t grasp the potential for the difference they could make if they came together with a common purpose.

One woman changed that. Frances Williams Preston, a music industry icon known for her generous spirit and unrivaled tenacity, was approached to be the honoree at the T.J. Martell Foundation’s annual fund-raising gala in New York City. The Nashville native saw it as an opportunity to create something special in her hometown.

“I told them I would do it so long as some of the funds raised were used to support cancer research right here at Vanderbilt,” Preston recalls.

The result was the Nashville division of the music industry-based charity, its Frances Williams Preston Laboratories and a new Cancer Center at Vanderbilt. The Center (later the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center) would develop into one of the strongest cancer research programs anywhere.

Starting with an initial investment of $1 million, the commitment for these “laboratories without walls” was a cornerstone of the new Center. Over 15 years, the Foundation has contributed more than $15 million for innovative research at Vanderbilt-Ingram. At any one time, about 20 investigators are directly supported by the Foundation, but virtually every scientist in the Center benefits from its impact.

“Our philosophy from the very beginning was to use the money for high-risk, high-payoff work with an emphasis on translation,” said Hal Moses, M.D., the Center’s director emeritus and director of the Preston Laboratories.

That investment has yielded high return. The Center’s $69 million in annual funding from the National Cancer Institute places Vanderbilt-Ingram among the top 10 cancer research centers in the country as measured by competitive NCI grant support.

Vanderbilt-Ingram’s strategy also aligns nicely with Martell’s vision to push boundaries “We fund eight very significant cancer centers, but Vanderbilt truly is a jewel in the crown,” said Peter Quinn, CEO of the T.J. Martell Foundation. “We want to fund out-of-the-box thinking, things that haven’t been tested before, and if we can get some traction with those findings, it’s brilliant. Vanderbilt is exquisitely good at leveraging our money.”

In the early days, the Preston Laboratories were among the first to explore the genetics of cancer. Today, the focus is on early detection/prevention and proteomics (the study of proteins) to individualize diagnosis and treatment based on markers in blood and tissue. Funds from Martell have been used to jump-start several important initiatives, including the Southern Community Cohort Study, aimed at understanding why African-Americans and people in the Southeast are more likely to develop and die from cancer. Martell support has also recently yielded information about how the cells surrounding the tumor contribute to cancer’s development and spread and the discovery of a way to “tag” tumors that are responding to therapy with a light-emitting molecule so doctors can gauge within days whether a treatment is working.

One of Preston’s favorite photos shows Preston and Moses as equal partners in making the science happen. While it’s not a
wedding portrait, it is symbolic of a relationship that Preston often likens to “a perfect marriage.”

“The artists and the scientists have come to respect each other so much, and the artists love Hal,” Preston says. “When we realize that the money we raise enables cutting-edge research that we might not have been able to do, it makes us really feel a part of it. That makes our marriage stay together.”

The Martell Foundation’s fund-raising model brings fans and artists together “to have fun raising funds” at concerts, ski events, wine auctions, bowling and fishing tournaments and the like. Preston’s idea for a ski-and-music event in her favorite Colorado resort, Crested Butte, quickly became the Nashville division’s signature event called Country in the Rockies.

The gathering became a family reunion of sorts for a group of regular attendees, with Moses and Preston as the symbolic heads of the family. They have shared happy times, including marriages and the births of children, but also sad ones. Moses has taken phone calls from many music industry friends over the years, seeking advice about a cancer diagnosis of their own or a loved one. Artist Van Stephenson of Blackhawk missed one year’s event to undergo surgery for melanoma, and later died of the disease; his bandmates began a memorial fund in his honor. Charlie Daniels and his manager, David Corlew, both became cancer survivors. And each time cancer struck so close to home, it only reinforced the music industry’s commitment and the scientists’ determination to end this disease.

Singer-songwriter Kathy Mattea, part of the line-up for the first Country in the Rockies and now a member of the Center’s Board of Overseers, was among those who turned to “Dr. Hal” for help when her father developed cancer.

“Vanderbilt got my Dad into a study in Knoxville, Tenn., which prolonged his life for about six months,” she says. “But larger than that, what they gave my Dad was an opportunity to add a layer of meaning to his struggle with cancer. He used to say, ‘maybe someone will be able to get this drug because of what they are learning from me right now.’ Shortly after he passed, that drug came on the market.”

Other artists say their motivation to become and stay involved is also personal.

“After losing my mother to cancer, what T.J. Martell and Vanderbilt do really hits close to home,” says Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry. “I see how hard everybody works and where the money goes and how it impacts the research … It means a lot to me.”

After headlining Country in the Rockies last year, the country music duo has offered to host the newest in the Martell Foundation event line-up – Country on the Beach next winter in Cancun.

While it may be easier to point to the differences between the music and science fields, Quinn says there is an important similarity.

“Music and medicine are always looking to the future,” he says. “In music, it’s the next new sound. In science, it’s the next
big discovery.

“But we’re always asking ‘what’s next?’”

Martell and Vanderbilt will be asking – and answering – that question together.

More information about the T.J. Martell Foundation at: www.tjmartellfoundation.org.