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.