Revolutionary Science

Revolutionary Science

Patients around the world are counting on us.

Despite incredible scientific progress, 600,000 Americans and 8 million people worldwide still die of cancer each year. We are determined to find a solution for each individual patient. Philanthropy is enabling us to discover new ways to prevent, treat, and Defy Cancer. Forever.

Cancer Prevention, Early Detection, & Interception

Cancer Prevention, Early Detection, & Interception

We seek to create a new discipline that will forever change the impact of cancer. Support through The Dana-Farber Campaign will allow us to re-imagine cancer care and stop cancer before it starts through cancer prevention, early detection, and interception. In so doing, Dana-Farber will become the preeminent institution for early detection and interception.  Dana-Farber has been a leader in cancer prevention and early detection for decades. Our scientists have made groundbreaking discoveries about inherited syndromes that changed the standard of care. We are leading the discovery of precursor conditions associated with cancer development, and we are now able to...

We seek to create a new discipline that will forever change the impact of cancer. Support through The Dana-Farber Campaign will allow us to re-imagine cancer care and stop cancer before it starts through cancer prevention, early detection, and interception. In so doing, Dana-Farber will become the preeminent institution for early detection and interception. 

Dana-Farber has been a leader in cancer prevention and early detection for decades. Our scientists have made groundbreaking discoveries about inherited syndromes that changed the standard of care. We are leading the discovery of precursor conditions associated with cancer development, and we are now able to assess risk, detect cancers earlier, and apply interventions better than ever before.

But we have a long way to go. We want to transform cancer care and reach millions of at-risk people, changing their lives through improved screening, early detection, and intercepting disease before it develops or advances.

Gifts to The Dana-Farber Campaign will allow us to:

  • Create a fully integrated clinical and research program that defines the field of early cancer detection and interception 
  • Unify and build on Dana-Farber’s world-leading work in early detection, prevention, and interception
  • Develop personalized screening and prevention plans based on an individual’s genomic profile and lifestyle factors.
  • Identify substantial new cohorts of at-risk individuals and creating new precision intervention strategies for them
  • Detect new and recurring cancers at their earliest stages through novel technologies

Together, we can change cancer care from reactive to proactive and change lives around the world.

For more information or questions, please contact Kate Hall.

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Cancer Immunotherapy

Cancer Immunotherapy

Immunotherapies use the body’s own disease-fighting immune system to kill cancer cells. In 25 percent of cases, the results are lifesaving. Immunotherapies have already improved outcomes in several cancer types: melanoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, lung, kidney, bladder, head and neck, liver, Merkel cell, and gastrointestinal cancers. Dana-Farber has been at the forefront of these advances. Funds raised through The Dana-Farber Campaign will help us extend the powerful benefits of immunotherapies to more patients by speeding our efforts to answer the biggest unanswered questions in this field, including: why does immunotherapy work for some patients and not others? Can side effects...

Immunotherapies use the body’s own disease-fighting immune system to kill cancer cells. In 25 percent of cases, the results are lifesaving. Immunotherapies have already improved outcomes in several cancer types: melanoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, lung, kidney, bladder, head and neck, liver, Merkel cell, and gastrointestinal cancers. Dana-Farber has been at the forefront of these advances.

Funds raised through The Dana-Farber Campaign will help us extend the powerful benefits of immunotherapies to more patients by speeding our efforts to answer the biggest unanswered questions in this field, including: why does immunotherapy work for some patients and not others? Can side effects be reduced? How do we combine immunotherapies with other treatments to improve survival rates? And how do we treat all cancers with immunotherapies?

We will expand our therapeutic cancer vaccine efforts, which can stimulate the immune system to recognize and kill cancer cells. Our research has already spurred development of one personalized cancer vaccine approach, first tested by Dana-Farber in patients with melanoma. Called NeoVax, this methodology is now being tested here in glioblastoma, kidney cancer, and ovarian cancer. Our goal is to discover new ways to maximize this vaccine’s effect and make it an option for treating many different cancers.

The campaign will also help us sharpen and strengthen the immune system’s cancer-fighting powers by enhancing the effectiveness of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, currently available only at Dana-Farber and a handful of other centers in the U.S. Our goal now: to make this therapy, used to treat some forms of leukemia and lymphoma, effective in treating a range of other blood cancers and some solid tumors.

Through a combination of laboratory research, enhanced technology, and clinical trials advancing “first-in-human” tests of potential new treatments, we will swiftly translate discoveries into the next breakthrough immunotherapy drugs for patients.

For more information or questions, please contact Patty Brent.

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Next-Generation Cancer Drugs

Next-Generation Cancer Drugs

Dana-Farber is a global leader in drug discovery, playing a critical role in the development of more than half of all cancer drugs approved by the FDA in the past 5 years. Our pioneering programs in cancer chemical biology and cancer biology give us the unique ability to discover and test prototype drugs and match patients with medicines that target vulnerabilities specific to their individual tumors. The development of these targeted therapies is one of the most important advances in cancer care over the past 20 years. Yet many cancer-causing proteins are not susceptible to drugs designed in the usual...

Dana-Farber is a global leader in drug discovery, playing a critical role in the development of more than half of all cancer drugs approved by the FDA in the past 5 years. Our pioneering programs in cancer chemical biology and cancer biology give us the unique ability to discover and test prototype drugs and match patients with medicines that target vulnerabilities specific to their individual tumors. The development of these targeted therapies is one of the most important advances in cancer care over the past 20 years.

Yet many cancer-causing proteins are not susceptible to drugs designed in the usual way. Modern targeted cancer drugs are small organic compounds that bind to a faulty protein and mess up how it works. In these cases, the proteins they target have crevices for the drug to fit in, like a key in a lock. Proteins that have these accessible “key” holes in them are considered “druggable,” because drugs can often be made to stop their destructive behavior. However, many of the most important proteins involved in cancer — proteins that drive some of the most common cancers — don’t have this preferred “keyhole” structure, so they’ve been labeled as “undruggable” by pharmaceutical companies.

But we don’t accept that. More than 75 years ago, our founder, Dr. Sidney Farber, said that he “never accepted the incurability of cancer,” and today, Dana-Farber doesn’t accept that cancer-causing proteins are truly undruggable. Dana-Farber is well positioned to continue our leading-edge discovery and address these so-called “undruggable” targets for our patients, to ultimately defy and defeat cancer. 

Now, more than ever, we need the life-changing partnership of our donor community to help us develop powerful new drugs, faster than ever before. Our goal is to raise $130M, which will help us develop 3 to 5 new drug candidates each year—offering hope to adults and children with rare and difficult-to-treat cancers. Together, we can develop next-generation cancer drugs that save lives.

If we don’t do this, it’s likely nobody else will.

For more information or questions, please contact Mark Veligor.

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Pediatric Cancers

Pediatric Cancers

When Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was founded in 1947, cancer in children was almost always a death sentence. Today, thanks to the determination of Sidney Farber, MD, and those who followed, the cure rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood leukemia, is nearly 90 percent. Today, our pediatric patients receive world-class care in our Jimmy Fund Clinic, and have access to hundreds of clinical trials representing the most cutting-edge treatments. We consistently rank #1 or #2 among pediatric cancer centers in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report. Yet, pediatric cancers of all types are still...

When Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was founded in 1947, cancer in children was almost always a death sentence. Today, thanks to the determination of Sidney Farber, MD, and those who followed, the cure rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood leukemia, is nearly 90 percent.

Today, our pediatric patients receive world-class care in our Jimmy Fund Clinic, and have access to hundreds of clinical trials representing the most cutting-edge treatments. We consistently rank #1 or #2 among pediatric cancer centers in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report.

Yet, pediatric cancers of all types are still the leading cause of disease-related death in children in the U.S. We are still a long way from our ultimate goal: a world where children always survive a cancer diagnosis.

Gifts to The Dana-Farber Campaign will accelerate efforts in our laboratories to find new prevention and treatment measures, reduce treatment side effects, and stop every childhood cancer in its tracks. Gifts will fund pioneering work to better understand even the rarest pediatric cancers and develop new drugs, including immune-based therapies and precision medicine approaches.

For more information or questions, please contact Kelsey Cunningham.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics

Epigenetics refers to changes in how genetic material is read and processed by the cell, rather than changes to the DNA itself. Like mutations in genes, epigenetic changes can also cause cancer. For decades, cancer research has focused on the role of genetic mutations, or changes in the DNA sequence, in driving cancer. But DNA is only part of the story. We now know epigenetic changes can be reversed, opening the door to a new class of cancer-fighting drugs. With our dual focus on adult and pediatric cancer research, Dana-Farber is leading the epigenetics revolution, translating findings from genetically simpler...

Epigenetics refers to changes in how genetic material is read and processed by the cell, rather than changes to the DNA itself. Like mutations in genes, epigenetic changes can also cause cancer.

For decades, cancer research has focused on the role of genetic mutations, or changes in the DNA sequence, in driving cancer. But DNA is only part of the story.

We now know epigenetic changes can be reversed, opening the door to a new class of cancer-fighting drugs.

With our dual focus on adult and pediatric cancer research, Dana-Farber is leading the epigenetics revolution, translating findings from genetically simpler pediatric cancer studies to more complex adult cancers.

Our researchers’ basic science discoveries in pediatric sarcomas in the early 2000's, for example, played a leading role in the recent FDA approval of the first-ever epigenetic drug to treat solid tumors.

We discovered that the pediatric cancer mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) is driven by an abnormality that leads to widespread epigenetic changes that spur the cancer’s growth. Working with collaborators in biotech, we discovered that a drug can block these changes and halt cancer growth. That drug is now in clinical trials.

Gifts will empower us to create an “epigenetics tool box” of compounds, animal models, and computational approaches for studying epigenetic mechanisms more rapidly and effectively. They will empower us to lead major collaborative research efforts with academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech firms to translate discoveries into clinical trials of epigenetic drugs, either alone or in combination with other therapies.

For more information or questions, please contact Kelsey Cunningham.

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Genomics and Precision Medicine

Genomics and Precision Medicine

At Dana-Farber, we aim to provide precise and effective treatments to every patient that walks through our doors. Donor support has helped us transform cancer treatment through seminal discoveries in cancer genomics—a field dedicated to identifying the genetic alterations that cause cancer. Our physician-scientists used genomics knowledge to help launch the era of precision cancer medicine, allowing us to match patients with medicines that target the specific genetic alterations driving their tumors. Despite this life-changing progress, we have more work to do to realize the full potential of precision medicine for all patients. In recent years we have only scratched...

At Dana-Farber, we aim to provide precise and effective treatments to every patient that walks through our doors.

Donor support has helped us transform cancer treatment through seminal discoveries in cancer genomics—a field dedicated to identifying the genetic alterations that cause cancer. Our physician-scientists used genomics knowledge to help launch the era of precision cancer medicine, allowing us to match patients with medicines that target the specific genetic alterations driving their tumors.

Despite this life-changing progress, we have more work to do to realize the full potential of precision medicine for all patients. In recent years we have only scratched the surface in our understanding of the DNA in cancer tumors. Determined to move beyond the 1 percent of the cancer genome that we currently understand, we aim to decode the remaining 99 percent—the “dark matter” of the cancer genome, in which Dana-Farber scientists discovered the first cancer-related mutations nearly a decade ago.

Support through The Dana-Farber Campaign will expedite our efforts to identify and understand the function of all genes, identify new therapeutic targets, conduct clinical trials of experimental therapies across cancer types, employ next-generation genomic testing, and help deliver precision medicine to all patients.

By increasing our understanding, we can speed development of new testing to rapidly identify and target specific mutations, devise new drugs to attack the weaknesses that information uncovers, and train a new generation of scientists to transform cancer care by matching the right drugs with the right patients from the very start.

For more information or questions, please contact Patty Brent.

Data Science, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Data Science, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Our expert biostatisticians, computational biologists, and knowledge systems engineers are driving innovation to Defy Cancer by creating and employing tools to leverage patient and genomic data into actionable treatments. Cancer is a complex set of diseases, with myriad genetic and biological underpinnings, symptoms, drug interactions, and treatment side effects. The revolution in genomic technologies gives scientists the unprecedented ability to mine the cancer genome, as well as the mountain of clinical data we partner with our patients to collect. The ability to curate and analyze this data has a substantial impact on the lives of current patients, while empowering researchers...

Our expert biostatisticians, computational biologists, and knowledge systems engineers are driving innovation to Defy Cancer by creating and employing tools to leverage patient and genomic data into actionable treatments.

Cancer is a complex set of diseases, with myriad genetic and biological underpinnings, symptoms, drug interactions, and treatment side effects. The revolution in genomic technologies gives scientists the unprecedented ability to mine the cancer genome, as well as the mountain of clinical data we partner with our patients to collect. The ability to curate and analyze this data has a substantial impact on the lives of current patients, while empowering researchers to make discoveries to transform cancer care for future patients.

MatchMiner, an award-winning Dana-Farber innovation, is the world’s first open-source platform for matching patients to clinical trials using genomic and clinical markers—using data science to ensure patients have customized cancer care. We now want to employ machine learning to scan handwritten patient notes and automatically extract crucial data into formats that enable ready analysis.

For example, our teams recently used machine-learning tools to interpret the text of radiology reports from more than 1,000 lung cancer patients. By building a database of outcomes to help “train” the machine-learning software to interpret text, they found that the software could generate outcome descriptions similar to those from radiologists—and dramatically faster. Human curators took about 20 minutes to annotate a single imaging report. In half that time, the computer models could annotate 30,000 imaging reports.

Advanced statistical analyses will filter and translate data into diagnostic assessments and treatment recommendations. Artificial intelligence will help unlock potentially revolutionary insights by identifying patterns not readily apparent to humans. And while we can already pinpoint mutations driving many individual cancers and identify which treatments might help, investments will catalyze clinicians’ ability to act on this information more quickly to save more lives.

For more information or questions, please contact Mark Veligor.

Discovery Science

Discovery Science

Many of today’s most important advances in cancer care trace their origins to basic science—research that uncovers biology’s fundamental principles. Research by Dana-Farber's William G. Kaelin Jr., MD, for example, revealed how cells sense and respond to oxygen. That basic research led to new medicine for kidney cancer, and could do the same for cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration, and anemia. The generous support of more than 700 donors over the years helped to fund Dr. Kaelin’s pursuit of innovative ideas that led to this breakthrough. This is but one example of how gifts to Dana-Farber have financed breakthroughs in the...

Many of today’s most important advances in cancer care trace their origins to basic science—research that uncovers biology’s fundamental principles. Research by Dana-Farber's William G. Kaelin Jr., MD, for example, revealed how cells sense and respond to oxygen. That basic research led to new medicine for kidney cancer, and could do the same for cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration, and anemia.

The generous support of more than 700 donors over the years helped to fund Dr. Kaelin’s pursuit of innovative ideas that led to this breakthrough. This is but one example of how gifts to Dana-Farber have financed breakthroughs in the lab that speed to the bedside as new treatments for many types of cancer.

Another example is the work of Dana-Farber’s Gordon Freeman, PhD, to unravel the workings of PD-1, a protein that was known to help cancer cells evade the immune system. Two decades ago, Freeman and his colleagues discovered a pair of partner molecules, PD-L1 and PD-L2, that work with PD-1 to protect normal cells from being mistakenly attacked by immune cells. Cancer exploits this interaction to switch off the body’s anti-tumor response. This finding opened up a whole new field of immunotherapy research and resulted in FDA approvals of PD-1 therapies for several cancers.

Dana-Farber is at the forefront of curiosity-driven science that ultimately translates lab discoveries into medicines. For example, several years ago, Dana-Farber’s Pasi Jänne, MD, PhD, set out to develop a new targeted therapy for patients with a drug-resistant form of lung cancer. Working with Dana-Farber colleague and structural biologist, Michael Eck, PhD, he generated a detailed structural map of the protein he wanted to target, and in collaboration with Dana-Farber chemists, designed a molecule that could bind to and inhibit the target protein. Thanks to the many cross-disciplinary collaborations that occur regularly at Dana-Farber, the project went from concept to preclinical testing in fewer than six months, setting the stage for clinical trials of drugs similar to this compound.

Supporting The Dana-Farber Campaign will foster this constant flow of ideas among our experts, enabling us to pursue ideas that could be the next home run in cancer care.

For more information or questions, please contact Mark Veligor.

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Dana-Farber has played a foundational role in more than half the cancer drugs approved by the FDA since 2018.

5 consecutive Magnet designations for nursing
90% Cure rate for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)
Dana-Farber is a pioneer in the field of cancer genetics and hereditary cancer risk
Dana-Farber was the first cancer center in New England to offer CAR T-cell therapy
Dana-Farber pioneered the use of one's own stem cells in bone marrow transplants
51 Biotech start-ups have been launched using Dana-Farber research and intellectual property
#1 Dana-Farber is the top-ranked cancer center in New England by U.S. News and World Report for the past 23 years
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