Donor Recognition

Around mile 20 of the 2023 Boston Marathon,^® Leah Meehan was in pain from a knee injury and struggling to keep pace. Out of nowhere, a bystander ran up to her with a bowl of bananas and said, “Take one of these. It will help you. The finish line is just six more miles away. You can do this!”

That act of kindness embodies the camaraderie and compassion that were on full display on Marathon Monday, a day made more poignant by marking the 10th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Runners from all over the world came together on a day that celebrates athletic excellence and the powerful impact of charitable giving, including Meehan and more than 500 fellow members of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC). This year’s team raised more than $7.8 million for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber.

“The kindness and support from complete strangers were unlike anything I’ve ever experienced and are something I will never forget,” said Meehan, who raised more than $110,000 as a first-time DFMC member in honor of her friend Tony Turano.

Meehan turned to running during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to cope while in lockdown. When Tony passed away in October 2021, Meehan channeled her newfound passion into a good cause: “I could not think of a better way to honor and remember his life than to run for and give back to the organization that allowed us the most valuable gift of all—more time with him.”

Many people who run for Dana-Farber develop a lifelong passion for the cause. Laurie Nahigian admits that she is not an avid runner, and yet she has run 25 marathons for Dana-Farber because, “I have to. Raising the money matters, and curing cancer matters.”

Regarding her incredible 25-year milestone, and the nearly $450,000 she has raised during that time, Nahigian said that for her, “it’s not about the miles I’ve run. Yes, I’ve crossed the finish line 25 times and am proud of that, but I'm not done. I’ll be back next year—when we cure cancer, that’s the real milestone.”

Former Dana-Farber instructor Shannon Bailey, PhD, began running with DFMC in 2019 and has run every year since. “Dana-Farber has some of the greatest science minds who perform some of the most cutting-edge research,” said Bailey, who raised more than $10,000.

As a scientist, he knows firsthand the financial resources it takes to fund research and develop new ideas in cancer medicine. “I am very committed to helping make cancer a disease you live with and not die from. I hope the money we raise can lead to more and better treatments for patients.”

Since 1990, DFMC has raised more than $122 million to benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research, advancing promising ideas at their earliest stages so they can move forward toward discovery and cure. Breakthroughs in basic science at Dana-Farber have led to more funding, clinical trials, and FDA-approved treatments for a variety of cancers.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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When Joan Suzanne Tomsich was just 48 years old, she thought her life was over. A diagnosis of multiple myeloma led her to thoughts like, “Will I be around to see my kids graduate or witness them getting married?” For Tomsich, the answers to these questions ultimately were “yes,” thanks to the groundbreaking work of Kenneth Anderson, MD, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center and the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine, Anderson has played a key role in many major advances in multiple myeloma research. He and his team have paved the way for most of the 16 novel therapies the Food and Drug Administration has approved in the past two decades. So, when Tomsich had the opportunity to make a philanthropic contribution, Dana-Farber was the obvious choice.

“In terms of where to make this gift, I didn’t even have to think about it,” says Tomsich. “Of course, I was going to give in support of Dr. Anderson’s research. I know the money is going to be well-spent and that he is going to find more treatment options, and hopefully one day, a cure.”

Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the bone marrow that can lead to a number of symptoms, including bone lesions or fractures, decrease in blood counts such as anemia, and impairment in kidney function. Dana-Farber’s research in this area has transformed patient care, enabling many of today’s patients to live three to five times longer after diagnosis than they might have expected only two decades ago. Nevertheless, myeloma cells eventually grow impervious to even the most potent medicines, causing disease relapse, and some myeloma subtypes do not respond well to standard treatments.

“We need to expand our research, continue to identify new therapies, and bring them to patients as quickly as possible,” says Anderson. “Joan’s generous support will fast forward discoveries and development of novel treatments to improve the lives of patients and their families, which will be a long lasting and wonderful legacy to the Tomsich family.”  Tomsich named Dana-Farber as the sole remainder beneficiary of a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) established by her mother, Suzanne Tomsich. Her gift of $10 million to The Dana-Farber Campaign will support Anderson’s work through the Joan Suzanne Tomsich Fund for Multiple Myeloma Research, as well as establish the Joan Suzanne Tomsich Endowed Fund for Patients and Families under the direction of Deborah Toffler, MSW, LCSW, senior director of Patient Care Services at Dana-Farber.

The Division of Patient Care Services offers supportive, educational, and financial resources to help reduce the burden of a cancer diagnosis. Patient assistance programs specifically help with financial barriers that patients and families face by assisting families with putting food on the table, paying for transportation or parking for treatment, and navigating potential income loss during treatment.

“No life is without stress, but when a patient is worried about how they are going to pay for gas or food, it can be a great burden to an already difficult time,” says Tomsich. “I want these programs to help fill that financial gap so that patients will not have to worry as much.”

Tomsich learned compassion from her parents, Suzanne and Robert, who generously supported charities in the arts, education, and healthcare, including a gift to Dana-Farber to name the Robert J. Tomsich Family Gallery in the Yawkey Center for Cancer Care. Although Robert Tomsich passed away in 2018, through Joan Tomsich’s incredible new gift, her family’s legacy of generosity will continue in perpetuity.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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When Joseph Deitch met Mother Teresa during a business trip to India two decades ago, something she said then really struck him. “If you have money, don’t let it sit in the bank and do nothing,” she told him and his associates. “Put it to work.”

“That always stuck with me,” said Deitch, founder and chair of the Commonwealth Financial Network and creator of the Elevate Prize Foundation. “I knew when the time came, I would.”

This year, as part of a plan to give away 90% of his wealth during his lifetime (the flip of tithing), Deitch gave a total of $3 million to Dana-Farber to help establish the Centers for Early Detection and Interception, and to advance the Institute’s Presidential Initiatives Fund.

“Cancer touches all of us, and I’m not sure I know another institution that is so universally beloved as Dana-Farber,” said Deitch, who lost his wife, Robbie Lacritz Deitch, to ovarian cancer in 2006.

The goal of the planned Centers for Early Detection and Interception, which is a top priority of The Dana-Farber Campaign, will be to leverage genetic testing and new knowledge about premalignant states to prevent or diagnose cancer in people who are at high risk based on their own history or that of family members.

“Typically, by the time people are referred to Dana-Farber, they have symptoms of cancer,” said Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD, chair of Medical Oncology and the George P. Canellos, MD, and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine. “By being proactive and detecting the disease in its earliest stages, we can achieve better outcomes for our patients.”

Deitch explained that his approach to philanthropy is “to find the institutions that I want to support, meet with their senior people, and, if I believe in the institution and trust their senior people, let them decide where the money can be best put to work. Who’s going to know more about what’s needed and where the money can best be deployed?”

That thinking led him to direct part of his gift to the Institute’s Presidential Initiatives Fund, which provides flexible resources for Dana-Farber President and CEO Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, to invest in the Institute’s greatest priorities. It provides vital support for strategic new initiatives and high-risk, high-reward research that doesn’t qualify for traditional grant funding and helps in recruiting and retaining the very best physician-scientists.

“Joe’s gift is an amazing vote of confidence in the people and promise of Dana-Farber, and we are most grateful,” said Glimcher, who is also the Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine. “His generosity will have a lasting impact.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has awarded six grants totaling $5.8 million to Dana-Farber investigators who are working to better understand and find cures for bloodborne cancers. LLS, which has invested nearly $1.6 billion in groundbreaking research worldwide since 1949, is a long-standing foundation partner of Dana-Farber.

LLS granted its prestigious five-year Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) award to Robert Soiffer, MD, who is leading a team of researchers at Dana-Farber and in Europe. They are exploring the mechanisms by which acute myeloid leukemia evades the immune system and causes the cancer to recur in patients who have undergone allogeneic stem cell transplants. Relapse occurs in as many as 40% of these patients, and their mortality rate is high.

“Right now, there are no proven strategies to reliably prevent or treat relapse,” said Soiffer, who is chief of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies and the Worthington and Margaret Collette Professor of Medicine in the Field of Hematologic Oncology. “Because of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, our team of experienced transplant collaborators can undertake innovative projects that have the potential to yield new treatments to help these patients.”

Chemical biologist Jun Qi, PhD, received the Blood Cancers Discovery Award for his work with Kenneth Anderson, MD, to investigate how an epigenetic protein, KDM5, can understand and overcome drug resistance to multiple myeloma immunotherapy. “We anticipate that our studies will result in new treatment options that can lead to significant improvements in patient outcomes,” Qi said.

Four investigators received Career Development Awards: Christopher Booth, PhD, Special Fellow; Coleman Lindsley, MD, PhD, Scholar; Qingyu Luo, MD, PhD, Fellow; and Eugenio Morelli, MD, Special Fellow.

Booth’s work focuses on a rare leukemia with a very poor prognosis called blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN). Little is known about the condition, which is typically found in men between 60 and 70 years of age, and there is no established treatment. Booth is investigating how alterations in the MYB protein cause BPDCN, hoping to produce new insights into how the disease develops that might spark new treatments.

Lindsley is working to improve clinical outcomes in patients with myeloid malignancies through an enhanced understanding of the diseases’ underlying mechanisms. He and his team will investigate how characteristics of the patient, the disease, and the stem cell donor influence outcomes for patients who undergo allogeneic transplants. They will also develop technologies to permit early detection of gene mutations that cause leukemias and their progression.

Luo is exploring why BPDCN is more severe than other leukemias and possible new treatments for it. His focus is on abnormal cell-signaling pathways that permit cancer cells to thrive and whether blocking these pathways in combination with existing cancer drugs can achieve better outcomes for patients.

Morelli’s focus is on defining the biologic and therapeutic significance of long non-protein coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in multiple myeloma. Despite the many therapies available, many multiple myeloma patients relapse and succumb to the disease. Morelli believes that lncRNAs may constitute the next generation of target molecules for treatment.

“Science builds on itself, helping us to learn more about what causes bloodborne cancers to help us find better ways to treat them,” said Lee Greenberger, PhD, LLS’s chief scientific officer. “Our decades-long partnership with Dana-Farber has already yielded great advances, and we expect these current projects to not only move us closer to a cure but improve quality of life as well.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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Sometimes only a few degrees of separation stand between strangers and a lifelong friendship—and changing the world for the better. 

This story of kismet goes back many years, to when Caroline Mortimer and Richard Grubman were neighbors of Dr. David G. Nathan in Cambridge, Mass. What began as friendly conversations over the fence, eventually grew into Nathan’s close relationship to the Mortimer/Grubman family. The enduring connection to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute includes Mortimer being treated for breast cancer in 2009, her late husband serving on the Dana-Farber Board of Trustees, and their family supporting multiple myeloma research, the Yawkey Center for Cancer Care, and other Institute priorities over the years. Despite an already long history, an equally meaningful chapter still lay ahead.

In addition to being president emeritus of Dana-Farber, Nathan is a consummate connector. One day last year he left Mortimer a voicemail about a brilliant Dana-Farber neuro-oncologist that she “had to meet”—Mariella Filbin, MD, PhD. Mortimer and Filbin’s chemistry was instant and serendipitous—from shared connections to Austria and an appreciation for early 20th century art, to a love of skiing. “I was immediately impressed with Mariella’s enthusiasm, expertise, and overwhelming commitment to finding treatments for children. That her work may benefit both children and adults was compelling,” says Mortimer. “We have unique connections on a personal level, but supporting Mariella’s professional work and the next generation of cancer researchers is my tribute to her determination to find effective treatment.”

That’s why Mortimer gave Dana-Farber $3 million to establish the Caroline Mortimer Fund for Pediatric Neuro-Oncology. This transformative gift has enabled Filbin to expand her lab, hiring additional brain tumor scientists and buying new spatial technology that can sequence single cells within the 2D and 3D structure of intact tumors. It has also increased the efficiency of processing fresh tumor tissue for immune and targeted therapy testing for all patients coming through the Childhood Brain Tumor Center that Filbin co-directs. “We haven’t improved the outcome of most malignant brain tumors in decades—now’s the time to do just that, and thanks to this fund we have the resources to make that a reality.”

When Nathan reflects on Mortimer’s generosity, he is optimistic about the potential philanthropic precedent and impact on the field. “Pediatric neuro-oncology is a vexing and vast issue that struggles to garner support,” he says. “I believe this gift will inspire other funders to invest in this important work.”

Filbin cannot imagine her career without Nathan, who has served as a mentor and extended family member for over 15 years—another commonality between her and Mortimer. Nathan’s lifelong dedication to solving cancer and building community has led to an incredible partnership that will improve the lives of patients, everywhere.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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Each day, nearly 50 adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients—those between the ages of 15 and 39—come to Dana-Farber for treatment, but many never connect with one another because they wait for appointments on different floors. Through HomeGoods’ “Find Home Anywhere” mission, and funded largely by donations from its generous shoppers, HomeGoods and the TJX Foundation have made a $3.6 million, 3-year commitment to Dana-Farber. This will fund the construction of the HomeGoods Young Adult Lounge in an effort to improve the patient experience. The gift will also help further research in this field through the establishment of the HomeGoods Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Research Fund, and support the Pediatric Resource Program with the HomeGoods Housing Grants Fund.

The goal of the new lounge is to create a sense of community for AYA patients and provide them with an opportunity to create organic connections. Right now, many AYA patients feel like outliers when they go to treatment, as they may be the oldest patients at the pediatric Jimmy Fund Clinic, or the youngest at the Yawkey Center for Cancer Care. The lounge will provide a more age-appropriate and comfortable setting for AYA patients and encourage them to build relationships with others in their age group.

The lounge will be available to all of Dana-Farber’s AYA programs and services, providing space for activities such as support groups, workshops, and educational sessions.

“At HomeGoods, we know that home is more than a place—it’s a feeling, and that a sense of belonging is critical to health and happiness,” said Emily Trent, senior vice president of marketing, HomeGoods and Homesense. “We are thrilled to expand our 20+ year partnership with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to create the HomeGoods Young Adult Lounge. Our hope is that all AYA patients not only feel safe, comfortable and at home when they come in for treatment but also have the opportunity to create a stronger sense of inclusion and togetherness with other patients in their age group.”

Research supported by the HomeGoods Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Research Fund will be carried out under the direction of Lindsay Frazier, MD, in consultation with Ann LaCasce, MD, MMSc. The two will serve as co-medical directors of the Center for Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology; LaCasce is also director of the Dana-Farber/Mass General Brigham Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology and is the Fellowship Program in Hematology/Oncology Chair at Dana-Farber. The HomeGoods Housing Grants Fund will be overseen by Joe Chabot, director of the Pediatric Resource Program.

Over the course of 23 years, HomeGoods has raised more than $24 million in support of Dana-Farber’s lifesaving mission with in-store fundraising from customer donations and the sale of charitable merchandise.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has awarded $1.22 million in grants to four early career investigators at Dana-Farber whose research has the potential to yield important breakthroughs in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Founded in 1946 in memory of the iconic sportswriter and journalist Damon Runyon, the foundation has since invested more than $430 million in nearly 4,000 scientists.

In 2022, the foundation continued its longstanding support of Dana-Farber investigators by awarding grants to Wallace Bourgeois, MD; Archana Krishnamoorthy, PhD; Matthew Oser, MD, PhD; and Xin Zhou, PhD.

Bourgeois received the Damon Runyon Physician-Scientist Training Award, which supports and encourages outstanding physicians without formal research training to pursue careers as physician-scientists. A postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Scott Armstrong, MD, PhD, since 2019, he will use his award to identify and test therapeutic targets for a particularly difficult-to-treat subtype of acute myeloid leukemia that is characterized by a rearrangement in the KMT2A gene.

“This award is a high honor, and we are most grateful to the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation for recognizing and rewarding Dr. Bourgeois’ exceptional talent,” said Armstrong, chair of the Department of Pediatric Oncology and the David G. Nathan, MD, Professor of Pediatrics. “His work holds tremendous promise for new treatments and, ultimately, improved outcomes for children with leukemia.”

Krishnamoorthy was awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship for her research into the mechanisms by which chromosomes are shattered during chromothripsis, a recently discovered mutational process that is common in cancer. She is a fellow in the lab of David Pellman, MD, the Margaret M. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Oncology.

Oser, a thoracic oncologist who is mentored by William G. Kaelin Jr., MD, 2019 Nobel laureate and the Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine, received the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Continuation Grant to further his work developing targeted therapies for small cell lung cancer. The disease typically responds well to chemotherapy but almost always recurs in less than a year.

Zhou, a bioengineer and cancer biologist, received the Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists for her work designing innovative proteins and cells to study and target cancer. She will focus on engineering versatile functional proteins that can distinguish and respond to various cancer-specific signals within a tumor’s microenvironment. She will then advance them into next-generation molecular biotechnologies, diagnostic tools, and therapeutics. 

“We support emerging talent with unique insight, drive, and boundless vision who are likely to make discoveries that change the field of oncology,” said Yung S. Lie, PhD, the foundation’s president and CEO. “These Dana-Farber scientists have the potential to do exactly that.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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The Linde Family Foundation has made a transformative $10 million gift to Dana-Farber to launch the Center for Therapeutic Discovery, which will develop novel therapies for patients with rare and hard-to-treat cancers. 

“Drug discovery for rare cancers often goes unaddressed because the market is perceived to be too small,” said Scott Armstrong, MD, PhD, who co-directs the new center with Eric Fischer, PhD. “This generous support from the Linde Family Foundation allows Dana-Farber to invest in novel therapeutic projects with a focus on impact, not profit, delivering new options and hope for patients facing the toughest cancers.” Accelerating drug development is a key strategic priority of The Dana-Farber Campaign.

Investigators across Dana-Farber will be invited to submit their most promising drug candidates to the new center for focused funding and expert support. Each year, the center’s staff and its distinguished advisory panel will select two to five projects to be shepherded through the preclinical pipeline and further toward clinical trials. Drug candidates will be chosen based on their ability to address pediatric and adult cancers with poor treatment outcomes.

“This level of funding and expertise is rare in academic medicine,” said Laurie H. Glimcher, president and CEO of Dana-Farber and the Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine. “With the resources and know-how provided by the team at the Center for Therapeutic Discovery, our scientists’ most significant breakthroughs can advance from the bench to the bedside for the benefit of patients everywhere. We are so grateful for the Linde family’s partnership in this pioneering venture.”

This latest gift, and the center it launched, builds on the family’s prior support of the Institute’s Chemical Biology Program and the Department of Pediatric Oncology.

“Dana-Farber is a leader in innovation and drug discovery,” said Karen Linde Packman, Dana-Farber Trustee and a member of The Dana-Farber Campaign Cabinet. “It is our hope that this gift will bring discoveries even closer to the clinic, leading to new treatments for pediatric and adult cancers.”

The new center is a strategic priority for Dana-Farber, which expects to invest $40 million—from philanthropic and Institute resources—in the venture during the next five years. The Linde Family Foundation stands ready to provide an additional $5 million grant to support the center if the Institute reaches specific milestones.

The center’s co-directors are two of Dana-Farber’s leaders in drug discovery. Armstrong, who chairs the Department of Pediatric Oncology and is the David G. Nathan, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, has made seminal discoveries into the causes of pediatric leukemia and the epigenetic mechanisms that lead to cancer in children. Fischer is director of Dana-Farber’s Chemical Biology Program and a world-renowned expert in cutting-edge approaches to structural and chemical biology, including targeted protein degradation.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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John Byrnes is a self-proclaimed “satisfied customer.” Diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer in 2015, John is grateful for each and every day his Dana-Farber care team has given him.

Pancreatic cancer is challenging to treat in its later stages, and also very difficult to catch at an earlier, more treatable stage. Knowing the odds, both John and his wife, Mollie, knew that they needed to go to “the best of the best” for a second opinion. They needed to go to Dana-Farber.

John’s treatment plan included an experimental drug offered in a clinical trial. And while he would not describe his experience as comfortable or an easy road, he and Mollie are grateful that he has survived and lived a very fulfilling seven years—many more years than the original prognosis he was given before coming to Dana-Farber.

“I’m a satisfied customer, and I knew I could trust my team,” said John. “Dana-Farber has A+ people. Every person who touched us makes us feel taken care of, from the receptionist, to the cafeteria workers, to the phlebotomist, to the nurses and doctors.”

One of the most comforting aspects of Dana-Farber for John was his doctors’ willingness to listen and give him options. He and Mollie have expressed their gratitude over the years by giving to Dana-Farber programs that help patients navigate their cancer—including patient assistance, the Blum Family Resource Center Van, and the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

Now most recently, the Byrneses have made a very generous gift of $1 million to support clinical research under the direction of John’s doctor, Kimberly Perez, MD.

“We’re motivated to help diagnose earlier, prolong life, and eventually eradicate this dreadful disease,” said Mollie.

With this funding, Perez has launched a clinical trial to test a new combination therapy for patients with localized pancreatic cancer—early stage cancer that has not yet spread to other organs. Perez’s Hale Center colleague Stephanie Dougan, PhD, recently discovered that introducing an inhibitor on the TGF-beta pathway, which is involved in many cellular functions, boosted the efficacy of the chemotherapy used for pancreatic cancer. The Byrneses’ gift will allow Perez to study the blood and other tissue samples from patients on the trial to understand how this new therapy alters the tumor biology, which will shed light on why some patients respond and others become resistant to the therapy.  

“This clinical trial marks the first bench-to-bedside translational study to be carried out entirely within the Hale Center—a triumph of collaborative science,” said Perez. “By leading clinical trials, we can change how patients with pancreatic cancer are treated across the globe. We’re so grateful for John and Mollie’s generous support.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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Each year, the Palm Beach community generously comes together to raise funds for Dana-Farber. For the 2023 annual Palm Beach fundraising initiative, Palm Beach donors contributed over $1 million to provide access to revolutionary science and extraordinary patient care that change standards of care around the world.

The Palm Beach Appeal provides flexible funds that help Dana-Farber advance early stage research, speed new drugs into clinical trials, recruit and retain top talent, and ensure that all patients receive the full measure of our Total Patient Care.

“Many of us have experienced Dana-Farber’s excellence firsthand, while others have been alongside a loved one through their cancer journey,” says Phyllis Krock, Dana-Farber Trustee and Palm Beach Annual Appeal chairperson. “Our supporters in Palm Beach are proud to come together to support groundbreaking cancer research that can help save lives beyond our community.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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For over three decades, the compassionate community in Palm Beach, Florida, has provided generous support for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s lifesaving mission to conquer cancer in adults and children—not only in Boston and Palm Beach, but also across the country and around the world.

That’s why, as part of The Dana-Farber Campaign, visionary Palm Beach donors set ambitious goals to both raise $60 million and increase membership in the Dana-Farber Society, a special group whose legacy gifts help secure the Institute’s future progress. Through the generosity and commitment of those in Palm Beach, over $67 million has been raised to date, and a record number of new donors joined the Dana-Farber Society.

As The Dana-Farber Campaign continues, our steadfast Palm Beach community remains dedicated to raising funds for campaign priorities including progress for early detection, expanding access and care to underserved patient populations, and advancing transformative research.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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Dana-Farber has launched a revolution in myeloma care, thanks to the power of precision medicine, genomics, immunotherapy, and philanthropy. Over the past 20 years, patient lifespan after diagnosis has increased three to five times, and Dana-Farber’s researchers have led the way in pioneering the new treatments that have improved the outlook for patients. The Institute’s reputation for excellence in myeloma research and care reaches far outside of the Greater Boston area and captured the interest of Maggie and Stephen Oetgen in California.

Building on the Institute’s unparalleled expertise, Irene Ghobrial, MD, director of the Center for Prevention of Progression (CPOP) and the Lavine Family Chair for Preventative Cancer Therapies at Dana-Farber, aims to detect myeloma in its earliest stages and intercept it.

Myeloma is preceded by precursor conditions that sometimes progress swiftly without showing symptoms. Although thousands of patients are diagnosed annually with such precursor conditions, there are no effective therapies to prevent disease progression and most patients do not receive treatment until they develop cancer.

Ghobrial and her team of researchers and clinicians are working to change the “watch and wait” standard of care by investigating treatments that can interrupt the disease in its earliest, pre-cancerous stages. For example, Dana-Farber is the first site in the world to offer teclistamab, a novel therapy, to patients with precursors in a clinical trial, and is also the first site in the world to secure approval for a CAR T-cell therapy clinical trial for precursors under Ghobrial’s leadership.

To advance this pioneering work, the Oetgens established the Oetgen Immunotherapy Fund at Dana-Farber with a generous $1 million investment. The Oetgen Immunotherapy Fund will accelerate novel immunotherapies from late-stage development in the lab to clinical trials, where they can be delivered to patients for the first time. The Oetgens shared their motivation for this magnificent gift: “After meeting Irene Ghobrial, and hearing about all of the tremendous work that she and her team at Dana Farber are doing to prevent cancer through the use of cutting-edge therapies which harness the powerful capabilities of her patients’ own immune systems, we have been thrilled to do all that we can to support her many efforts both now, and into the future.”

Ghobrial remarked, “Thanks to the support of the Oetgens, I can accelerate progress and meet our critical goals of identifying who is at risk of developing myeloma and why, and to deliver precision medicine to patients with precursor conditions with a focus on immunotherapy.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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Many of today’s important advances in cancer care trace their origins to basic research—a form of scientific investigation aimed at uncovering the fundamental principles of biology, chemistry, and foundational science. With grants totaling $2.25 million from the G. Harold & Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation, three Dana-Farber scientists are pursuing novel basic research studies that may set the foundation for new cancer treatments.

Wayne Marasco, MD, PhD, is probing a novel cellular mechanism to attack tumors. He is exploring a new form of cellular therapy known as chimeric antibody signaling and secreting (CASS) B cells. These cells are engineered to recognize tumor-specific antigens through a receptor that activates CASS B cells and induces the production of elevated levels of antibodies to attack the tumor.

“The idea of engineering human B cells to seek out cancer cells and secrete these antibodies at the tumor site is novel and untested, and could provide a new way to treat both primary and metastatic tumors,” says Marasco.

In her lab, Evanna Mills, PhD, is exploring how metabolites control brown fat to reduce obesity, which is a risk factor for cancer. Brown and beige fat have an abundance of macrophages—white blood cells that eliminate damaged and diseased cells—which play a role in the regulation of fat cells. She is studying mechanisms by which itaconate, a metabolite produced by macrophages that controls inflammatory responses, regulates brown and beige fat cell function and anti-obesity activity.

While chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, which uses specially altered T cells to reprogram patients’ immune systems to target cancer cells, has been successful in certain blood cancers, these modified cells do not last in the body forever. To address this issue, Eric Smith, MD, PhD, director of translational research for the Immune Effector Cell Therapy Program at Dana-Farber, is developing approaches that will, in patients, continuously generate immune cells expressing a CAR—a special receptor created in the lab that binds to certain proteins on cancer cells—to target and eliminate cancer cells. His work could have important implications for gene therapy and cellular therapy to treat blood cancers.

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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Baila Janock embodies generosity in its many forms. For over 30 years, she has combined her gifts of time, treasure, and talent to make a long-lasting impact on Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and its patients. She has been an Institute volunteer, platelet donor, and captain of Team Irv in the Boston Marathon^® Jimmy Fund Walk. And as one of the founding members of the Dana-Farber Society, a special community of donors who include Dana-Farber and the Jimmy Fund in their estate plans, she has ensured that the critical research and treatment she cares about are funded well past her lifetime.

Recently, Janock generously pledged $1 million to establish the Baila A. Janock Fellowship Fund to support a fellowship focused on pancreatic cancer. Fellowships like this attract the brightest minds in the field and prepare a new generation of physicians and scientists to become tomorrow’s leaders in clinical and laboratory investigation and patient care.

“Baila has been a phenomenal champion of our early career faculty,” said Robert Mayer, MD, faculty vice president for academic affairs at Dana-Farber and the Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Medicine, who led the Fellowship Program in Hematology/Oncology for 35 years. “Since 1996, 25 of these extremely talented individuals have had the good fortune to be Janock Fellows. Many of them have developed lasting relationships with her. Baila’s continued support of Dana-Farber and our gastrointestinal cancer program in particular has been simply extraordinary.”

In addition, Janock made a significant gift to fuel capital projects and strategic initiatives that will be recognized with a named space, linking her generosity in a tangible way to the Institute’s lifesaving mission. To Baila, this physical representation of her legacy provides an opportunity to show others how their support could also change lives now and into the future.

Janock’s reasons for making gifts through her estate are numerous. For her, it was important that a fellowship would continue in perpetuity and that she could reduce future estate taxes. She valued the peace of mind she gained from deciding now about the legacy she would leave. “Giving during my lifetime has always been important to me, and I want to continue doing so after my death,” she says. “It was important to me that Dana-Farber receive a significant gift from my estate. The Institute has always been my home away from home and it is a privilege to be a part of the Dana-Farber family. I receive far more than I could possibly give financially.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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The V Foundation for Cancer Research, founded by legendary basketball coach Jim Valvano, has granted $1.6 million to four Dana-Farber investigators conducting innovative research aimed at improving early detection and overcoming treatment resistance for a variety of challenging cancers.

Dipanjan Chowdhury, PhD, and Srinivas Viswanathan, MD, PhD, are using their V Foundation awards for research that could lead to new methods of early detection, interception, and prevention. Chowdhury, the Svanberg Family Chair at Dana-Farber, is developing a microRNA-based blood test to identify individuals at elevated risk of developing ovarian and breast cancers and to predict when their cancer could occur. This test could revolutionize early detection and dramatically improve survival, particularly for ovarian cancer, which is usually not treated until late, advanced stages since no early diagnostic test exists.

Viswanathan is studying translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC), a rare, often misdiagnosed form of kidney cancer, to establish a new detection method based on its unique gene expression pattern. This work aims to uncover tRCC’s key molecular characteristics and advance the accuracy and ease of diagnosis, which could facilitate earlier interventions that may cure this aggressive cancer before it spreads.

In the realm of innovating new and improved therapies, Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay, MBBS, PhD, and Mark Awad, MD, PhD, are dedicating their efforts to some of the most challenging and drug-resistant cancers—childhood gliomas and non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), respectively. Gliomas are the most common cause of cancer-related death in children, and treatment options remain limited. With the goal of finding new targeted therapies for this devastating disease, Bandopadhayay will use her V Foundation award to determine how FGFR gene mutations cooperate with other activating mutations to drive pediatric gliomas. This research aims to identify new genetic targets for combination therapies that will enhance the effectiveness of FGFR inhibitors and overcome FGFR-inhibitor drug resistance which occurs commonly in patients with glioma.

Awad, clinical director of the Thoracic Oncology Treatment Center at Dana-Farber, is developing a cancer vaccine for ALK-mutated NSCLC in patients whose cancer has developed resistance to ALK-inhibitor drugs. Although these drugs are initially effective, the cancer frequently becomes resistant, leaving patients with few treatment options. The vaccine is designed to cause a patient’s immune system to attack the cancer cells and could become an effective new treatment that will help these patients live longer.

“Our mission is funding game-changing research to accelerate victory over cancer and save lives,” shared Susanna Greer, PhD, chief scientific officer of the V Foundation. “These four tremendous Dana-Farber investigators illustrate our commitment to funding the best and brightest scientists because today’s cancer research is tomorrow’s victory.”

For more stories about the impact of philanthropy at Dana-Farber, please visit DanaFarberImpact.org.

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