Dean Crowe, Founder and CEO Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management (SPNM) at Harvard Business School Executive Education, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Twenty years ago, Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research Foundation began when I asked my friend Nancy, a mom whose son was fighting brain cancer for the second time, a simple but powerful question:
“What can I do to help? And I will not make you dinner. We are way past dinner.”
She looked at me and said,
“Raise money for childhood cancer research. And fund the best research wherever it is.”
Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is believe early.
Rally’s sweet spot has been funding young scientists with bold ideas. Ideas that just might change everything.
As we celebrate 20 years of impact, we’re kicking off our Rally-Funded Discovery series with a story that shows the power of believing early.
Meet Todd Druley, MD, PhD. His Rally-Funded Discovery has definitely helped our RallyKids and so many others.
Read below Rally’s impact in Dr. Druley’s own words:
In 2010, as a junior faculty physician-scientist in pediatric oncology at Washington University in St. Louis, I received two Rally Foundation grants to develop a new DNA sequencing technology to uncover rare genetic factors in pediatric ALL, a type of leukemia that is the most common cancer in kids.
Rally’s support gave my young team the momentum to pursue this ambitious work.
That early funding led to the development of Error-Corrected Sequencing (ECS), which improved our ability to detect DNA mutations in cancer by about 100-fold.
This innovation helped advance the field of precision medicine and next-generation sequencing, allowing doctors to make more data-driven treatment decisions and greatly enhancing how we detect Measurable Residual Disease (MRD)—tiny traces of cancer that remain after treatment.
Today, leading companies and academic centers, including Illumina, use various versions of ECS to improve cancer diagnostics and guide targeted therapies.
What began with Rally’s seed funding has now become the standard for cancer research and personalized treatment strategies worldwide.
This is the power of a question.
This is the power of early-stage funding.
This is Rally.”
More posts featuring Dean Crow on OncoDaily.