APPLETON, Wis. — The Lawrence University swim teams will participate in the 10th annual Ted Mullin Hour of Power Relay for Sarcoma Research on Tuesday evening.
The event, sponsored by the Carleton College swimming and diving teams, honors those who are fighting or have succumbed to cancer, including former Carleton swimmer Edward H. “Ted” Mullin, who passed away from synovial sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer, in September 2006. The annual swim relay, which now includes dryland teams as well, has grown from 15 teams in its first year to more than 180 teams and 8,000 athletes in recent years. Participating swim teams engage in continuous relays of any stroke for a full hour of all-out swimming. Dryland teams engage in their particular sport non-stop for a full hour.
The event begins at 5 p.m. in Boldt Natatorium in the Buchanan Kiewit Wellness Center.
In the event’s first nine years, participating teams have raised over $550,000 to support research at the University of Chicago into the causes and treatment of sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer. This is the eighth consecutive year the Lawrence teams have participated.
The funds have been used for a variety of projects that evaluate the genetic basis of sarcomas, the identification of novel markers of disease diagnosis or progression, and the development of new small molecule and cell therapies for resistant disease. Each summer, the University also hosts Ted Mullin Fund scholars, offering four Hour of Power participants an opportunity to advance their interest in science and cancer biology by spending 10 weeks in a laboratory under the mentorship of a pediatric cancer researcher within the Section of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, at the University of Chicago.