As we observe World Cancer Day, I’m reflecting on my own family’s experience with blood cancer, the children with blood cancer I have had the honor of knowing, and the many individuals and families who have been impacted by a blood cancer diagnosis.
Our work at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has had a positive impact on so many, but we can do even more to accelerate progress for the blood cancer patients we serve.
As a pediatric oncologist for 25 years, I’ve dedicated my professional career to giving patients and their families more quality time. But in 2007—long before I became president and CEO of LLS—the goal of more years of life became personal.
My wife Holly was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma that year. At the time, we had a kid who had just started kindergarten and another in second grade. We had a lot of living ahead of us. We had big dreams.
Thankfully, 10 years prior, LLS had funded research that contributed to the approval of the world’s first monoclonal antibody for cancer—a drug called rituximab. Rituximab saved Holly’s life in 2007…and we counted on it again and again after a few relapses.
Thanks to that innovative therapy, Holly and our family have had 17 more years… and counting…of quality life together.
This is what we do at LLS. We enable breakthroughs that add more years, more time…for many people like Holly. Though Holly is my favorite example, in my job as a pediatric oncologist and at LLS I have the honor of meeting many inspiring patients who have benefitted from our work. Patients like Austin.
Austin was diagnosed with a high-risk form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia right before his third birthday. By age five, he was out of treatment options and his parents enrolled him in a CAR-T clinical trial. It saved his life. Today, Austin is 16, cancer-free, driving, and enjoying high school. So far Austin has gained 11 years of life—and in someone so young, this one-time treatment could easily give him 70 additional years or more!
But there is so much more work to do. We want all blood cancer patients to live longer, better lives.
LLS’s Bold Goal
That’s why LLS has a new bold goal: to enable patients with blood cancer to gain more than one million years of life by 2040.
Our bold goal means more birthdays, more graduations, and more cherished moments for blood cancer patients and their families.
It represents the additional years of life gained because of LLS’s ongoing commitment to accelerating cures and treatments, investing in breakthroughs and driving access to care for all. Over 75 years, LLS’s work has added millions of years to patients’ lives, and if we did nothing from this day on, we’d still be adding invaluable years and moments. But our bold goal is to go above and beyond today’s achievements—to accelerate the current pace of discovery and access to care.
How will we accomplish our bold goal?
We will continue pushing science forward at critical points and connecting the dots that lead to innovative therapies like rituximab, CAR-T, and Gleevec, and more recently to breakthrough menin inhibitors to treat acute myeloid leukemia. Innovation is not driven by a single investigator, or a single lab at a single institution, at a single point in time. It takes the work of many innovators over, often, decades to develop new game-changing therapies. Our job at LLS is to be there every step of the way, looking for the great new ideas, funding the best science, and bringing together the necessary elements, experts and innovations to help accelerate progress that will save and improve lives.
We’ve also put into place an organizational strategy with five key focus areas that will guide us and help us reach our bold goal as we deliver our lifesaving mission. Through our strategy and our comprehensive approach that includes research, patient support and education, and advocacy, we are primed to drive toward our bold goal in the work we do every day.
But we can’t do it alone. It takes all of us—researchers, volunteers, healthcare professionals, LLS staff and partners, and of course, our generous donors.
Our bold goal can become yours as well. United in action, we can help give patients many more meaningful moments with family and friends. Together we can push forward transformational progress that will enable blood cancer patients to gain one million more years of life! It’s a bold goal indeed—but I have no doubt that with your help we will reach it!
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