A Special Non-Profit Spotlight: Meet Jenn (Excerpt from website)
Life is a game of odds. What are the odds you graduate from high school and go to college – pretty good! What are the odds you fall in love, get married and have two children and two grandchildren – also, pretty good.
What are the odds you get triple negative breast cancer – it’s less than 1% of all breast cancers and one of the most difficult to treat. Now what are the odds that the chemotherapy and radiation treatment for your triple negative breast cancer causes tAML (treatment-related Acute Myeloid Leukemia) two years later? That happens in about 1% of all triple negative breast cancer cases.
The standard treatment for AML is chemotherapy and often radiation to wipe out leukemia “blasts”. Once these cells are wiped out, you are in remission and ready for a bone marrow transplant (BMT). The five year success rate for this treatment plan is approximately 30%. What happens when that doesn’t work and leukemia returns? Quite frankly, the odds aren’t good!
… There are other cancers, like mine, that are still waiting for their “cure moment”. With respect to AML, I believe that moment has arrived!
…What if you could directly move that knowledge from hope in a laboratory to reality in a patient’s life journey?
My doctor at the City of Hope, Dr. Guido Marcucci, and his unbelievable research team are poised to do just that. They believe that they are on the verge of being able to cure some of the toughest and most resistant forms of AML. The City of Hope is establishing an Accelerator Fund for the Gehr Family Center for Leukemia Research at City of Hope. This fund will help Dr. Marcucci accelerate the development of these life-saving advancements.