International cancer research foundation, The Cure Starts Now Foundation (CSN), along with the partnership of the DIPG Collaborative, has reached an unparalleled cycle of grant funding in 2013. In November, representatives handed out upwards of $850,000 to nine researchers around the world. To date, The Cure Starts Now has raised over $2.2 million in revolutionary cancer research since 2007.
These nine grants were a result of the revolutionary DIPG Collaborative Symposium in May 2013 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital that showcased both the best and most innovative cancer research proposed worldwide. Recent grants were awarded to Cincinnati Children’s, Lurie Children’s, Children’s National, Yale, Duke, Monash Institute of Australia, Sick Kids Hospital, Dana Farber and Texas Children’s. Previous grants have been awarded to other top worldwide institutions such as Stanford, Baylor, Weill Cornell, St. Jude and the Cancer Institute of Australia.
As part of an initiative of the DIPG Collaborative Symposium meeting in May 2013, over 19 cancer research organizations joined forces at the second “homerun cure” pediatric brain cancer symposium in the United States. A collective effort four years in the making, the DIPG Collaborative Symposium saw over 80 attendees from 7 countries worldwide in pursuit of new strategies in pediatric brain cancer research, a cause which many experts believe will result in new opportunities for cures to all types of cancer, both adult and pediatric.
“This represents our very best chance of advancing cancer research decades into the future by capturing the homerun spirit that originally cured so many cancers over 50 years ago. Too often, we tend to fight cancer as individual diseases, ignoring both the commonalities and the very experts that see possibilities and cure strategies that can affect all cancers, and thereby affect us all,” says Keith Desserich, Chairman and Co-Founder of The Cure Starts Now Foundation.
The Cure Starts Now Foundation is one of the first foundations to focus on a “homerun strategy” to cancer research, gaining worldwide recognition both by families and other cancer organizations for their focus on revolutionary new strategies for cancer research. Inspired by their daughter, Elena Desserich, Brooke and Keith Desserich devoted their efforts to unifying families and organizations worldwide towards this fight.
