Stand Up To Cancer’s sixth biennial telecast on Friday, Sept. 7 (8:00 – 9:00 p.m. EDT/PDT), has added more names to its star-studded lineup. Jason Bateman, Beth Behrs, Julie Bowen, Josh Brolin, Kaley Cuoco, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Max Greenfield, Jon Hamm, Mark Harmon, Sarah Hyland, Adam Klein, Tyler Labine, Diego Luna, Sonequa Martin-Green, Dave Price, Keanu Reeves, Tracee Ellis Ross, Winona Ryder, Jimmy Smits, Eric Stonestreet, Alison Sweeney, Bree Turner, Sofia Vergara and Marlon Wayans are coming together in the fight against cancer. They join an extraordinary list of previously announced participants including Mahershala Ali, Kathy Bates, Katie Couric, Jennifer Garner, Tony Hale, Marg Helgenberger, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, Marlee Matlin, Matthew McConaughey, Maria Menounos, Jillian Michaels, Trevor Noah, Dak Prescott, Italia Ricci, Rob Riggle, Karla Souza, David Spade and Keith Urban. The telecast will feature three musical performances, one by 25-time GRAMMY Award winner and activist Stevie Wonder, one by GRAMMY-winning and six-time reigning CMA Country Vocal Group Little Big Town, as well as one by 11-time GRAMMY nominee and cancer survivor Charlie Wilson.
The telecast marks SU2C’s 10 years of support for cutting-edge research aimed at turning every cancer patient into a long-term survivor. Three patients who are benefiting from Stand Up To Cancer research will appear on the telecast: Caitlyn, a Canadian teen whose hypermutant cancer failed to respond to traditional treatments and spread to two additional organs, enrolled in a Stand Up To Cancer-funded clinical trial and now has no active evidence of disease; Lidia, a retired school teacher from Yuma, Arizona, whose pancreatic cancer was treated in an SU2C-funded clinical trial and, in the initial round of chemotherapy with five experimental drugs, saw her tumor shrink by half; and Brian, a former Marine Corps pilot from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, whose melanoma recurred twice and spread until it was treated in an SU2C-funded immunotherapy clinical trial and went into functional remission.
This year’s fundraising event will take place at The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, with a creative design and production bringing the experience to life for audiences tuning in at home. The historic space will feature a sprawling main stage with Stand Up To Cancer’s animated graphics and SU2C brand colors and other touchpoints layered into every facet of the set and design. Throughout the show, SU2C will bring viewers into the backstage hub, an interactive space dedicated to connecting celebrities from TV, film, sports, music and digital influencers with the public via traditional phone and socially through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
In addition, playing a unique part in this year’s show is Twitch, the leading social video service and community for gamers where tens of millions of people from around the world come together each day for live, shared, interactive entertainment. Hosted by Rachel “Seltzer” Quirico, Twitch fan favorites Markiplier and Pokimane will go head-to-head with other gamers and celebrity participants in today’s most popular gaming title: Fortnite. With a goal to connect its passionate online community to SU2C’s mission to support innovative cancer research, Twitch will live stream the Fortnite competition on the official Twitch channel (www.twitch.tv/twitch) from 4:00-6:00 p.m. PDT alongside the live television broadcast.
During the telecast, when a Mastercard is used to make a donation through StandUpToCancer.org (U.S.) and StandUpToCancer.ca (Canada) or by telephone, Mastercard will match those donations, dollar for dollar, up to US$1,000,000. The Mastercard donation match ends at 11:59 p.m. EDT or when the US$1,000,000 donation match is reached, whichever comes first. Only Mastercard transactions are eligible. (The maximum donation match may be met during the course of the live telecast.)
For donations of $25 or more made online at StandUpToCancer.org/AmericanAirlines from Sept. 3 through Sept. 30, 2018, American Airlines will award 20 American Airlines AAdvantage® miles for every dollar donated through the Miles To Stand Up program.
To kick off the telecast roadblock, social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will unite for a one-hour standalone digital show that will stream live from The Barker Hangar from 7:00-8:00 p.m. EDT/4:00-5:00 p.m. PDT. Its #Up2Us: Stand Up To Cancer | The Digital Live Show will be co-hosted by Max Greenfield, Tyler Posey and Brenda Song, and will feature influencers and stars across the world of entertainment who will rally the next generation of supporters through themes of hope, courage and strength with the message that it is #Up2Us to Stand Up To Cancer. Talent participating in the digital show include Rhett + Link, Uzo Aduba, Beth Behrs, Paris Berelc, Katie Couric, Hannah Hart, Olivia Holt, Ken Jeong, Liza Koshy, My Nguyen, Teni Panosian, Candice Patton, Megan Pormer, Andrea Russett, iHeartRadio’s JoJo Wright, Mackenzie and Maddie Ziegler, and more. Instagram and Snapchat will support the proactive initiative with complementary content and stories tied to the sweeping campaign. Additionally, the show will be featured across iHeartMedia’s multiple social platforms.
In addition to Bradley Cooper, the telecast will be executive produced by David Jammy and Katy Mullan of Done + Dusted, Stand Up To Cancer’s co-founders Lisa Paulsen and Pam Williams, as well as Bedonna Smith of Anonymous Content, and Madeline Marotto.
As in years past, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, along with American Heroes Channel, AT&T AUDIENCE Network, Bloomberg TV, Bravo, Destination America, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, E!, EPIX, Escape, ESPNEWS, FM, Freeform, FS2, FXM, FYI, Galavision, Great American Country, HBO, HBO Latino, ION Television, Jewish Life TV, Laff, Logo, MTV2, Nat Geo WILD, REELZ, SHOWTIME, Smithsonian Channel, STARZ, STARZ ENCORE, STARZ ENCORE ESPAÑOL, TNT, Univision Puerto Rico, and WGN America are donating one hour of simultaneous commercial-free prime time for the telecast, with additional networks to be announced. Following the live broadcast, the telecast will be available to stream via ComedyCentral.com and the Comedy Central app, as well as its VOD partners. Aspire TV will air the Stand Up To Cancer telecast on Saturday, Sept. 8 at 8:00-9:00 a.m. EDT/PDT / 10:00 a.m. CDT. The entire telecast will also stream live on SU2C’s Facebook page and PeopleTV, as well as stream live and on-demand on Hulu and SU2C’s YouTube page.
For the third time, Stand Up To Cancer Canada will simultaneously broadcast a Canada-inclusive telecast across four major English-language Canadian broadcasters: CBC, Citytv, CTV and Global, as well as Canadian services AMI, A.Side, BBC Earth, CHCH, CHEK, Cottage Life, Fight Network, Game TV, HIFI, Hollywood Suite, Love Nature, Makeful, NTV, OUTtv, Smithsonian Channel Canada, T+E and YES TV. In addition, the show will stream live on the CBC TV App, cbc.ca/watch, CBS All Access, the CTV App and CTV.ca, Global GO and GlobalTV.com, and SU2C Canada’s YouTube page, and will be available on-demand on TELUS Optik TV in Canada.
To date, more than $480 million has been pledged in support of SU2C’s innovative cancer research. The organization has brought together more than 1,500 of the best scientists from over 180 leading institutions with an emphasis on collaborative, multidisciplinary teams that deliver new therapies and treatments to cancer patients. Scientists work together on Stand Up To Cancer’s 24 signature “Dream Teams,” among a total of 79 team science grants and awards, whose research is aimed at ending cancer’s reign as a leading cause of death worldwide. SU2C-funded researchers have planned, launched or completed more than 180 clinical trials involving over 12,000 patients.
SU2C’s wide-ranging scientific portfolio is overseen by a blue-ribbon scientific advisory committee chaired by Nobel Prize winner Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most grants are administered by SU2C’s Scientific Partner, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the world’s first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research.
Other members of the SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) include Vice Chairs Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., dean, College of Medicine, and professor, Departments of Biochemistry and Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston; Lee J. Helman, M.D., professor, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, and director, Cancer Research Program, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles; Arnold J. Levine, Ph.D., professor emeritus of systems biology at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey; and William G. Nelson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore. The SU2C Canada Scientific Advisory Committee is co-chaired by Alan Bernstein O.C., O.Ont., Ph.D., FRSC president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and Dr. Sharp. Projects are administered by AACR International-Canada and Stand Up To Cancer Canada.
As SU2C’s founding donor, Major League Baseball has continued to annually provide both financial support and countless opportunities to build the Stand Up To Cancer movement by encouraging fans worldwide to get involved, most notably through its two largest global events – the MLB All-Star Game and the World Series. In addition to MLB, SU2C’s “Luminary” donors include Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, and Mastercard. “Visionary” donors include CVS Health, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and the Sidney Kimmel Foundation.
Additional major donors and collaborators include American Airlines, Merck, Rally Health, Inc., St. Baldrick’s Foundation, and Van Andel Research Institute. Other key supporters and collaborators include American Lung Association’s LUNG FORCE, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Farrah Fawcett Foundation, Laura Ziskin Family Trust, LUNGevity Foundation, National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance, Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer and international collaborator Cancer Research UK.
The Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) are actively collaborating with SU2C Canada. CCS is also a collaborator in the inaugural Stand Up To Cancer Canada – Canadian Cancer Society Breast Cancer Dream Team, along with the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR). Collaborators in the inaugural Stand Up To Cancer Canada Cancer Stem Cell Dream Team include CIHR, Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, Genome Canada and OICR. AstraZeneca Canada and Mastercard are the first corporate supporters of SU2C Canada.
About Stand Up To Cancer
STAND UP TO CANCER (SU2C) raises funds to accelerate the pace of research to get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now. A division of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), SU2C was established in 2008 by media and entertainment leaders who utilize these communities’ resources to engage the public in supporting a new, collaborative model of cancer research, to increase awareness about cancer prevention, and to highlight progress being made in the fight against the disease. As of April 2018, more than 1,500 scientists representing more than 180 institutions are involved in SU2C-funded research projects.
Under the direction of our Scientific Advisory Committee, led by Nobel laureate Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., staff at SU2C and the American Association for Cancer Research, our Scientific Partner, implement rigorous competitive review processes to identify the best research proposals to recommend for funding, oversee grants administration, and ensure collaboration across research programs.
Current members of the SU2C Council of Founders and Advisors (CFA) include Katie Couric, Sherry Lansing, Kathleen Lobb, Lisa Paulsen, Rusty Robertson, Sue Schwartz, Pamela Oas Williams, and Ellen Ziffren. The late Laura Ziskin and the late Noreen Fraser are also co-founders. Sung Poblete, Ph.D., R.N., serves as SU2C’s president and CEO.
For more information on Stand Up To Cancer, visit www.StandUpToCancer.org.
