About Me

My Goal: Run the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2019 with the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge. Raise $17,000 (or more!) where 100% of funds raised benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. I run in honor of my friend Chris Davie who is battling brain cancer. I also run in honor for my friend RJ and his continued cancer-free life, in memory of Heather Thomson, and for other family and friends who are or have battled cancer. Together we can help Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reach the ultimate finish line: a world without cancer

Barr Program Impact Statements

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.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

The End is in Sight...

A busy week lays ahead as DFMC events occupy Monday-Thursday, but at this time of year, these are perfect and help motivate us as the marathon draws near.

First, a huge thank you to the 20+ donors from the last 3 weeks who have helped boost our total amount raised to $7,777!  This is fantastic and puts the $10,000 goal within reach before the marathon.  As a team, DFMC has raised over $4,000,000 to date!!  This is an incredible amount and will help researchers continue innovative cancer research in the years ahead.  Examples of the benefits of these funds are highlighted in the Barr Program Impact statements as well as via DFCI releases such as this one on how genomic testing links patient response to treatment.

After traveling for work this week, today was our 2nd to last major group run and our longest run of training - 22 miles.  We started with ~170 DFMC teammates at Boston College, ran through the Newton Hills and out to Natick.
170 DFMCers preparing to head out for 20-22 miles!
Turning at mile 11 to head back to BC, we joined 100s of other charity runners running the course and took advantage of the lane closures the town set up for us.
Runners and cars get 1 lane each. Who is the happiest? :)
We had 'fans' and little kids giving us high fives along the way.  This was immensely helpful as after turning at mile 11, we realized that we had had a tail wind the entire way out, uh oh.  We preserved, picked it up and finished with negative splits (better 2nd 1/2 than first 1/2).  Overall it was a good training run and a nice springboard to feel positive for the marathon in 3 weeks!  If you'd like to see more about it, here's a NECN link from the training run. 
22 miles completed!
Proof that we did it, and could have finished the marathon in a bit over 4 hours.


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