Innovative Donors Fuel Innovative Research

Norman Pattiz and Mary Turner Pattiz lived glamorous, successful lives in the entertainment industry—he as a media visionary and pioneer of modern network radio and she as a trailblazing rock ‘n roll disc jockey who mingled with the leading bands of the 1970s and ‘80s.

But they both also led less publicized lives of public service and private philanthropy.

The couple supported and served on the boards of causes they cared deeply about—for him, education, science and communications; for her, health and substance use disorders, and they shared a devotion to animal charities.

Now, the Norman and Mary Pattiz Foundation has continued this legacy with a $3 million gift to the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center to establish the Norman and Mary Pattiz Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. The goal: to speed research into advancing cures for ovarian cancer.

“Our charter obviously is to fund worthwhile causes, in particular, causes we believe Norm and Mary would support wholeheartedly,” says Larry Freeman, a member of the Pattiz Foundation Board, long-time friend of the couple and passionate advocate for USC Norris.

Inaugural holder of the chair is Saul Priceman, PhD, director of the USC Keck School of Medicine/USC Norris Center for Cancer Cellular Immunotherapy Research.

“We were thrilled to recruit Dr. Priceman to lead the new KSOM/USC Norris Center for Cancer Cellular Therapy Research, making USC Norris a premier destination for cancer research and patient care,” says Caryn Lerman, PhD, director of USC Norris and H. Leslie and Elaine S. Hoffman Cancer Research Chair. “His innovative approach to targeting solid tumors, such as ovarian cancer, with cellular immunotherapy is a game changer.”

Under Dr. Priceman’s direction, the Center is developing next-generation CAR T-cell therapies, a cancer immunotherapy that deploys a patient’s own genetically modified T cells.

“This chair goes above and beyond being a prestigious academic title,” he says. “It represents protected time for me to focus on ovarian cancer research, which holds true to something very important to these donors.”

Mary Pattiz passed away in 2023 after a battle with ovarian cancer, less than six months after her husband’s passing from throat cancer.

Research Priority
Dr. Priceman launched a first-of-its-kind clinical trial to evaluate the use of innovative, genetically engineered immune cells to treat recurrent ovarian cancer. Other trials are ahead.

Ongoing research in the Priceman Laboratory seeks to expand on CAR T-cell therapy approaches and to harness basic science to understand how ovarian cancer progresses and its immune landscape—“all so we can better address the disease,” he says. The team also is looking at other solid tumors, including breast, pancreatic and prostate.

“We are grateful to the Norman and Mary Pattiz Foundation for enabling us to expand on our existing strengths in cellular therapies for cancer as we nurture new collaborations and ideas that can potentially help patients everywhere,” says Carolyn Meltzer, MD, dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC and May S. and John H. Hooval, MD, Dean’s Chair.

“We are excited to make this gift to USC at this critical time,” says Freeman.

Norman Pattiz handpicked the members of the Foundation board to carry on his work. In addition to Freeman, they include two other close friends—Paul Krasnow, who gave Pattiz his first job at age 18, and Jeff Hershberg, who met him through international radio. Rounding out the board is Pattiz’s former business manager, Karen Kerrigan.

Freeman’s devotion to USC Norris started in the 1980s when his son, Mark, was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. The pathology studies—crucial for diagnosis, staging and treatment planning—were done at USC Norris, “a debt I can never repay,” he says.

When he launched the Freeman Aces Cancer Tennis Tournament in 1987 to raise funds for USC Norris, Pattiz was one of the first donors.

Tale of 2 Pioneers
Pattiz was working in sales for KCOP-TV Channel 13 in the early 1970s when he had a lightbulb moment. Why not syndicate rock music to radio stations nationwide? In 1976, he founded Westwood One, which soon became America’s largest radio network.

After three decades in radio, Pattiz broke ground again in the 2000s, launching PodcastOne.

Among his many volunteer efforts, he served on the Board of Regents of the University of California for 17 years, along with the boards of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and others.

Mary Turner Pattiz—known as “The Burner” in her DJ days for her warm, smooth delivery—gave up those accolades after she and Norman married in 1985. She earned her master’s degree and PhD in psychology and began working as a psychologist in substance dependence.

She chaired the board of the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and served on the boards of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and its Graduate School of Addiction Studies.

Having been innovators themselves, the Pattizes would no doubt appreciate the innovations transpiring in the Priceman Laboratory at USC.

Overcoming Obstacles
One of the biggest challenges in tackling solid tumors is that they grow in an inhospitable microenvironment. Some tumors have immune suppressive mechanisms that keep cells from fighting cancer. “We’re not only trying to get the immune cells to reach the cancer,” Dr. Priceman says, “but once they get there to withstand that harsh microenvironment.”

In a bold experiment, the Priceman team decided to skip typical intravenous injections of CAR T cells and infuse the immune cells directly into the patient’s abdomen—bypassing barriers to their destination.

CAR T-cell therapy is personalized medicine, developed for each individual patient, making it an exacting and time-consuming process. Dr. Priceman is aiming to develop a more efficient and shorter process and speed the time to clinical use.

“We have a lot of exciting research underway,” says Dr. Priceman, “which will set the stage to advance a number of promising therapies in near future.”