Neal's Big Birthday Celebration's Fundraising Page

For many years, Neal Levitan and Audrey Zabin have supported Dana-Farber’s mission through involvement with the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) and the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrated Therapies and Healthy Living. Most recently, the couple established the Levitan-Zabin Fund for GROW Support with a gift of $250,000, to advance work led by David Reardon, MD, clinical director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber, that focuses on the effects of glioma brain tumors among patients after they have completed treatment.

A glioma survivor himself, Neal knows firsthand the experience of living with this disease, and its lasting side effects. As a rider on the same PMC team as Reardon, Neal has advocated for interventions that address the psychological as well as cognitive and physical effects of gliomas and their therapy, an area of cancer care that both Neal and Reardon agree is underrepresented. 

The Levitan-Zabin Fund provides the necessary funding to establish the GROW Support Program led by Reardon, and his colleague, Tim Sannes, PhD, to undertake a multidisciplinary interventional approach that includes psychology, social work, nursing staff, and clinicians. Programs like this are emblematic of Dana-Farber’s signature Total Patient Care model, a key priority of The Dana-Farber Campaign. 

“This initiative will allow us to work with patients and families once they are off treatment to dive into some of the impact of the disease on their overall quality of life,” said Reardon.  “Thanks to Neal and Audrey’s gift, we’re looking forward to expanding on this first and one-of-a-kind program, with the hope that it will become universal and standard in treating glioma and other cancers.”