Funding the Fight Against Cancer

Many people remember Paul Sandoval as a charismatic and well-respected Colorado politician.

Yet there are even more who remember him as a friend and beloved member of the community.

“I know you really hear a lot about the high profile people that he was involved with, but in reality, he helped a lot of everyday people,” said Paula Sandoval, his wife and a politician herself. “He would get involved in peoples’ lives, and they loved him for it.”

Paul was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2011.

Following his diagnosis, Paul and Paula faced a choice. The two weighed cancer centers and hospitals across the country, but ultimately decided to seek treatment at the University of Colorado.

 “As we were thinking about where to treat Paul, I thought, ‘Why am I going to go out of state when we really do have a world-class facility at the University of Colorado Cancer Center?’” Paula said.

Nurses at the University of Colorado Cancer Center emphasized compassion during Paul's treatment

As Paul underwent treatment, Paula continued to learn more and more about pancreatic cancer. One of the most striking things she discovered was the crucial need for additional research—and especially for research funding.

For years, Paul and Paula had sponsored scholarships for high school students throughout Denver. After Paul passed away in 2012, Paula decided to redirect that money toward pancreatic cancer research.

She established the Paul Sandoval Pancreatic Cancer Research Scholarship Fund in 2014 to contribute to finding a cure.

Melanie Blevins,  a post-doctoral research fellow in the department of biochemistry at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, is the scholarship’s first recipient.

She is working to develop a therapeutic inhibitor for cancer—essentially a drug that prevents cancer cells from growing and dividing.

“This scholarship has really opened up a lot of doors for me,” Blevins said. The scholarship has given her the funding she needs to continue to conduct experiments to understand how her work is targeting pancreatic cancer.

The Paul Sandoval Pancreatic Cancer Scholarship provides crucial funding for Melanie's research

Blevins is optimistic about the future of cancer research. “We will just continue to get better and better and understand more and more, and as we do that, the therapies will come. Treatments will improve.”

“And I think that underscores the importance of research dollars in general,” Paula said. “People like Melanie need those research dollars to continue the fight.”

One day, Blevins hopes to cure cancer. And with the support of people like Paula Sandoval, she is well on her way.