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.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

A Welcome Change

2012, before the snow really started
During the last 4 years I've made it to most team runs and thus I've run the same routes many times.  Our run in Wayland has always been a pretty run, but usually not a fun run.  The rolling hills are nice to start, but less so as we wrap up 14-16 miles.  The 'quiet' back roads quickly get busier and about 1/2 the drivers see no need to slow down for us.  On top of this, the run in Wayland has usually had snow and gotten quite sloppy (see pictures from 2012 and 2014).   This year was a welcome change as we didn't have any snow, just some wind and cold.  I felt good during the run and was happy to finish the 14 miles at a sub-9 min/mile pace.  Definitely wasn't trying for this but chatting with teammates helps the miles go by.

2014, mile 10 of 14
Following the group run was the Patient Partner Match Party.  This is our chance to meet and reconnect with our patient partners.  Having run in honor of RJ these last 5 years, we have a great relationship and 'reconnect' throughout the year but it's always great to see him, as well as the other runners and patient partners.  After some ice cream sundaes, we heard from Dmitri and his runner about what the program has meant to them.  It's always a great to hear from the patient partners as a reminder how much us runners mean to them since we already know how much the patient partners and 'in memory of' families mean to us.  It was another great event and I'm looking forward to our fifth year in the patient partner program!

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