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CR&T Looks for Researchers…It Is Unique
By Keith A. Muhleman

June 2007

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Coaxing Cancer Researchers to Take Your Money” (May22, 2007, Page D-1), the writer, Amy Dockser Marcus reported on Jeffrey and Marnie Kaufman who wanted to support research for a rare form of salivary-gland tumor that affected Marnie. They were able to raise more than $700,000 from family and friends but had difficulty finding researchers willing to work on this “orphan” cancer.

“Budgets are tight at the National Institutes of Health, labs are scrambling to find funding, and many private foundations and pharmaceutical companies do not invest in research for rare cancers,” Ms. Marcus reported.

“Raising the money was not the hard part,” Mrs. Kaufman said. “We found out we would have to find the right people to give it to.”

Fatalism keeps many researchers from even applying for grants, given long waiting periods from submission to acceptance…sometimes one year to a year and a half. The Kaufmans set out to hire the right people to do the research for them. This is a unique approach given the passive stance that most grant makers use by waiting for submissions from interested researchers.

Unlike the general grant maker, the Cancer Research and Treatment Fund, like the Kaufmans, has utilized the unique approach since its inception. We have always sought skilled researchers and clinicians to investigate prior research, start new basic lab research in areas such as adult stem cell growth and the recidivism of breast cancer as well as basic and trial studies into blood cancers. Like the Kaufmans we are concerned for the orphan cancers and for unique approaches to treatments for cancers, especially blood cancers which have historically formed the basis for understanding and treating solid tumor cancers.

As supporting partners, the friends of CR&T have encouraged the study of cancer using unique and creative methods in finding the best researcher in the field and providing them with the assistance they need to shed more light on new and more successful treatments for cancer. That continuing support will ensure a future where we will successfully make cancer a disease for the history books.