Between 2014 and 2017, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Childhood Cancer Foundation was gracious enough to provide my laboratory with over $400,000 in financial support.  We are deeply grateful to this tremendous organization and its commitment to curing cancer in children. This September, the ALSF will again be holding its annual Million Mile fundraiser. As a way to thank its grant-funded scientists, the ALSF will match dollar for dollar the amount of money my laboratory raises during the fundraiser - you give $1, the ALSF will send us $2. I am very proud to say that your exceptional generosity in 2014, again in 2015, and yet AGAIN in 2016 allowed my laboratory to be THE top external ALSF fundraiser in the United States for three years running!  In 2016 I made you a promise. I promised that I would drag a clinical trial over the finish line in 2017, or else. I didn't get it done, and true to my word, you didn't hear from me again.  Until now....

When I couldn't pull a clinical trial over the finish line in 2017, I knew something had to change.  I had to get smarter.  I had to get more determined.  I had to get meaner.  So I did all of the above.  And on July 31 of this year, we opened DECIST (Dendritic Cell Immunotherapy in combination with Standard chemotherapy for the Treatment of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma). It's open and accruing. Right now. Next on the agenda is to open an adult GBM trial, and THIS is the trial that will finally let us move on to pediatric brain tumors.

Childhood cancers are among the most underfunded diseases that affect kids in America today, and foundations like the ALSF fund treatments and cures for a variety of childhood cancers that might otherwise go largely unnoticed. The ALSF continues to be the major funder pediatric brain cancer clinical research programs, and your donation to the ALSF on our behalf will go a long way toward providing hope to parents and kids who currently have none. Pediatric cancer didn't take a break for the pandemic.

In 2015 and 2016 we held this fundraiser in memory of Dr. Robert Arceci who was killed in a traffic accident in June of 2015. Bob was one of the most famous and respected pediatric oncologists in the US and a specialist in childhood brain tumors, leukemias, and sarcomas. Bob was also a dear friend and close scientific collaborator. He had worked very hard toward the implementation of our pediatric brain clinical trial and was really looking forward to its ultimate fruition. I still miss Bob terribly and want to honor his 40-year commitment to pediatric cancer research by holding the fundraiser in his memory again.

I'd also like to hold the fundraiser in memory of my dear friend Candide Bott who passed away suddenly in 2016.  Candide cared deeply about medical causes and always gave generously.

In previous years, I signed off on these appeals by saying, "It’s up to all of us to drag this over the finish line. No one else is going to do it". I used to say it because I really used to believe that money was the only obstacle.  Now I know better.  There are bigger dragons to slay.  So instead, I'll just thank you in advance for your very gracious support.  There are at least seven trials we want to open, so my promise to you is that I will leave it all on the field, every day, until the task is complete.

With love,

William