Basic Research matters

​Help fund it 

Many of you have seen the headlines about a blood test that can detect 50 different cancers at very early stages that make them much more curable. GRAIL, a company in California, has done great work to make that test reality.

What you don’t know is that some of the earliest work that created that test came from NET cancer research done at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, partially funded by The Walking with Jane Fund for NET Cancer.

A special thank you to all the previous donors who made that happen.

When I set up the fund on the first anniversary of Jane’s death back in 2011, I told Drs. Matt Kulke and Jen Chan I wanted the money to go into basic NET cancer research—the kind of research pharmaceutical companies and governments don’t really support. They want something that seems certain and has big bang for the bucks they put in it.

You never know where basic research will lead you. The Dana-Farber lab went looking for a way to detect NET earlier and more reliably. What they found led to this test for 50 hard to detect and often rare cancers—a game changer for hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions of people.

Every five years I make a new commitment to help fund basic research on NET at DFCI. We’re still ironing out the details of how that will work this time, but my goal is to raise $200,000 over the next five years to continue funding the kinds of basic research that lead to an end to NET cancer—lead to the end of all cancers. But we need your help to get there. 

The new fundraising page isn’t finished yet, but it’s functional. The official launch is December 10. But if you donate between now and then, I’ll match every donation up to $5000 total.

Basic research matters. Help fund it.