FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Courtesy of Simmons Athletics Communications

BOSTON, Mass. - The Simmons College women's swimming & diving team joined thousands of student-athletes from collegiate, high school, and club teams across the nation and abroad to celebrate the 10th Annual Ted Mullin "Leave it in the Pool" Hour of Power Relay for Sarcoma Research, sponsored by Carleton College swimming and diving teams. 

The Sharks gave support to the cause for the eighth straight year to join an estimated 7,500 other student-athletes throughout the nation.

The Hour of Power event 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 over 180 teams and more than 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. 

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. 

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.