Washington, Aug 22 (ANI): This year, September 10 will be the day when luminaries from all walks of life - actors, musicians, athletes and journalists - will come together in a groundbreaking initiative aimed at raising funds to accelerate innovative cancer research.

The one-hour fundraising event Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) is by executive produced by Laura Ziskin and will be hosted by Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, and Brian Williams (the anchors, respectively, of the CBS, ABC and NBC evening news programs).

The event will feature numerous celebrity cancer survivors who exemplify that cancer can affect even the smartest, strongest and toughest people in our lives.

Christina Applegate, Lance Armstrong, Michael C. Hall, Elizabeth Edwards and Sharon Osbourne are some of the celebrities expected to be present.

Others include The Simpsons, Mandy Moore, Cindy Crawford, Rashida Jones, Queen Latifah, Reese Witherspoon, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Stevie Wonder.

The broadcast will be dedicated to the 12 million U.S. cancer survivors and illustrate how groundbreaking research can change the tide in the fight against the disease.

“We are eternally grateful for the remarkable support we’ve received from the entire entertainment community. We couldn’t do this without everyone’s help - from the networks and cable channels donating the airtime to our celebrity volunteers participating in the show and a lot of other people in between,” said Sherry Lansing, one of the co-founders of Stand Up To Cancer.

The primary goal of SU2C is to raise funds for groundbreaking translational research to accelerate the delivery of new therapies to patients, getting them from the “bench to the bedside” as quickly as possible.

The event will be simulcast live and commercial-free on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Bio, Discovery Health, E!, G4, HBO, HBO Latino, MLB Network, mun2, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, The Style Network, TV One, and VH1.

One hundred percent of all donations received from the public will go directly to cancer research. Viewers will have the ability to donate via a dedicated phone line, the web, or through text. (ANI)