Supporting Brain Tumor Research at
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Over the last 12 years, the Hope...It's a Beach Thing event has raised over $661,000 for brain tumor research led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Dr. David Reardon.
Learn more about recent updates:
2024 Email update from Dr. Reardon..
David Reardon, MD
Clinical Director, Center for Neuro-Oncology
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
"My research here is shared and done in collaborators from North America, Asia, Europe and when possible South America.
I am a longstanding member of the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO), served as former president (2013-2015) and have been Chair of the SNO Foundation since 2015.
The research is going strong – my preclinical lab continues to test 10-15 promising pipeline agents per year in relevant brain tumor model systems and leverages these results to bring new drugs to the clinic for our patients. The clinical research continues to focus on novel immunotherapy approaches including combinatorial treatments. We have several ongoing active trials and other that we look forward to opening later this year"
Dave
August 13th 2024
2023 Video update from Dr Reardon
Letter from Dr. Reardon
Dr. David Reardon, MD
Clinical Director, Center for Neuro-Oncology
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dear Friends,
First of all, I wish to thank all of you for being a part of this event and honoring Tim Beach and his family. I would like to share a few words as we gather to honor Tim’s legacy.
This is an exciting time in cancer research. Over the past few years a whole new modality of treating cancer has emerged – immunotherapy. Immunotherapy refers to cancer treatments that help the immune system, our body’s natural defense system to fight cancer. In these past few years, over 10 new immunotherapy drugs have been approved by the FDA for over 16 types of cancer. This is a remarkable achievement, but the reality is that we have only begun to scratch the surface. Even for these cancers that have received FDA approvals, immunotherapy drugs only benefit a minority of patients, and there are some cancers, such as brain cancer, where immunotherapy drugs so far have not had an impact.
Brain cancer is one of the most complex and challenging of cancers, thus it is not too surprising that our initial attempts to tap into the potential of the immune system to fight brain tumors have not been successful. We are learning from ongoing research that brain cancers have in place many adaptations to protect themselves from the immune system. The more we learn about these adaptations, the better position we achieve to overcome these adaptations and allow the immune system to successfully fight and defeat these devastating tumors.
We have a long road ahead and many tough challenges to overcome. Funds raised through events such as the HOPE…It’s a Beach Thing 5K are particularly critical to our brain cancer research efforts. Today, federal funding is severely limited and without funds raised through these types of events, many promising cancer treatment advances would not be able to be pursued.
Support from these events adds up and will be vital as we endeavor to bring exciting new treatment approaches forward from our immunotherapy laboratory directly to our brain tumor patients in the clinic.
Finally, please realize that progress and discoveries we make through our research for brain cancer patients with this support frequently “ripple out” and contribute to research efforts ongoing for other types of cancer; thus your support today will help us to impact the outcome for patients with brain cancer as well as many other types of cancer today and for future generations.
On behalf of our patients, their families and our team at the Dana-Farber Center for Neuro-Oncology, thank you for this wonderful event and support today. No doubt, Tim is quite pleased to see this remarkable effort, in his honor, on behalf of others. We will not quit until we find a way to defeat these devastating tumors.
Dave
September 7, 2018
Dana Farber Cancer Institute's research program is a leader in clinical trials for brain tumors. Their goal is to bring laboratory discoveries directly to patients, allowing them to offer new treatment options. Learn more about Dr. Reardon's work here or visit Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's website.
Glioblastoma Research
In this video, Dr. Reardon shares more information about his glioblastoma research efforts.
2013 Video
2012 Video
Dr. Reardon's research update and thank you from 2012.
A video before our 2013 event. He gives us all a deeper look into the GBM research efforts at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.