The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation Awards $1,500,000 in Research Grants
While we awarded $1,500,000 in research grants last month, I purposely held off announcing this so as not to compete with all of the holiday chatter. I think news of this magnitude deserves attention.
Thanks to you, we are able to help thousands of families each year pay their bills while their child fights his or her life-or-death battle. But, that's not enough! We have to do more to change the landscape of childhood cancer in a more proactive way. I have gone to too many children's funerals, many who die because the treatment wears their bodies down or because they die as a result of secondary cancer(s) caused by the standard protocol. I saw, firsthand, what it did to my son.
We are truly blessed with a world-class Scientific Advisory Board. Eight of the nation's (and world's) leading pediatric oncology investigators give their time to us to review research grant applications and recommend selections. In our last grant cycle, we had 41 applications submitted from the U.S. and Canada. Our Scientific Advisory Board recommended the top 10 and we, of course, concurred. Each grant recipient will receive a $150,000 grant payable over 2 years.
Our grant recipients are all very impressive investigators who represent a diversity of disease type, type of research, & geography. We are proud to announce the recipients of our latest research grant cycle. (name/institution/disease focus)
Dr. Sonali Barwe - Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital (DE) - Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Dr. Oren Becher - Lurie Children's Hospital (IL) - Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma
Dr. Eleanor Chen - University of Washington (WA) - Rhabdomyosarcoma
Dr. Xingguo Li - University of Rochester (NY) - Neuroblastoma
Dr. Reshmi Parameswaran - Case Western Reserve University (OH) - Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Dr. Ronald Parchem - Baylor College of Medicine (TX) - Central nervous system tumors
Dr. Kristopher Sarosiek - John B. Little Center for Radiation Sciences - Harvard (MA) - Central nervous system tumors
Dr. Bjoern Schwer - University of California, San Francisco (CA) - Medulloblastoma
Dr. Jason Yustein - Baylor College of Medicine (TX) - Osteosarcoma
Dr. Leo Wang - City of Hope (CA) - Brain tumors
Unfortunately, research takes time. But, I'm hopeful that our investment is going to make a meaningful difference in changing the landscape for kids down the road. We are giving some really smart people the ability to do some really exciting work. Thank you.
I'll keep you posted.
B+
Ali & Andrew's Dad