DFMC 7 & Boston 2019: In Honor of Chris Davie: A Run Before Another Storm

Barr Program Impact Statements

Immunotherapies: New Ways to Activate the Immune System—An important area of cancer research asks why the human body's defense systems do not always attack and destroy tumors as they form. Funded by the Claudia Adams Barr Program, Glenn Dranoff, MD, discovered complex regulatory pathways in the human immune system that cancers exploit in order to escape destruction. Reversal of these effects can lead to the development of vaccines against cancer, like Provenge for prostate cancer. This research has also enabled the development of immune-activating drugs such as ipilimumab, which showed striking effects in melanoma in a trial led by Dana-Farber scientists and is now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

A Run Before Another Storm

After the last year's training season, I was hopeful that this year would be a bit easier and conducive to team runs. Thus far, it has not been the case. In 2013, DFMC cancelled 4 group runs, the most ever for the team. Including this weekend, DFMC has already cancelled 3 group runs unfortunately.

With the storm on Thursday, Boston received more snow followed by rain, not a great combination for runners. As a weekend storm approached on Saturday afternoon, we hit the roads on Saturday AM in cold conditions, but no wind. After the Thursday storm, the sidewalks were in ok shape, but still plenty of areas that were not cleared and thus forced running in the street. After making our way to the Charles River and finding relatively clear conditions, we joined a host of other runners along the Charles and enjoyed the scenery. The downside of running along the Charles is the lack of hills, but it was a nice change of pace from the last few weeks.

After running the Charles path, we headed to downtown Boston and then the Seaport. One of the nice things about running early on a Sat AM is the relatively few people on the sidewalks and streets. Making our way back to South Boston, Amy and I rounded Castle Island and Fort Independence. As we had not run any hills, we finished by running up Dorchester Heights - running up is hard enough, I can't imagine getting a cannon to the top of hill! Having run nearly 17 miles, we finished the run at Dunkin Donuts before starting to refuel with a well deserved breakfast and coffee.

This week will include another speed workout at Tufts track and hopefully a group run next weekend of ~18miles. With 9 weeks to go to the marathon, I'm looking forward to receiving my DFMC singlet this week. Below is taken from FoxBoston as they unveiled the DFMC singlets:

"This year is the first year after the Boston Marathon bombings, so the singlet pays tribute to the 2013 Boston Marathon with its color scheme, and also puts the Boston city skyline along the sides, designed to "give each teammate a symbolic 'hug' as they return to the storied race," a statement from the cancer center read.

2014 also marks Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's 25th year participating in the marathon. Runners for the team raise money for the Claudia Adams Barr Program, which funds cancer research."