Project Accelerate

Gift from a Child partner, the Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) has caught the attention of the NIH in a big way! The National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI)’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) have taken on the herculean task of sequencing the remaining tumor specimens in CBTN’s biorepository! Read…

Oncoheroes Biosciences And Swifty Foundation United Toward New Cures

RELEASE FROM ONCOHEROES BIOSCIENCES Childhood cancer is considered a rare disease that accounts for about 1% of all U.S cancers. However, childhood cancer is not just one disease – there are more than 12 major types of pediatric cancers and over 100 subtypes. Although pediatric cancer death rates have declined over the past four decades…

Let’s Get This Done

Our good friend Nancy Goodman, founder and executive director of Kids v Cancer recently had a blog published by The Cancer Letter.  It was Nancy who guided us through Michael’s decision to donate his tissue for research. She continues to be an unstoppable proponent for advancing pediatric cancer research. Excerpt from The Cancer Letter Blog:…

A Dream You Dream Together

I never knew the truth of this quote by John Lennon until now: A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. Our California Dream became reality when through your generous support we were able to fund Michelle Monje’s tissue navigator at Stanford and also fund the next…

Swifty Family Forum a Rousing Success

I think you can imagine the trepidation I felt going to a two-day meeting of families all of whom had lost a child to brain cancer. My stomach hurt at the thought of facing that much pain in one room. Guess what? We laughed, we cried, we shared 3 things everyone should know about our…

CBTTC Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas

You may have missed this announcement; lost in the shuffle of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Maybe you saw the announcement and didn’t quite understand the importance of the launch. The Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas  is a major step forward in advancing collaboration and accelerating research. We are proud to be part of this organization and…

Why is Tissue Not Sexy?

Denver is a great city… just not as “hippie/granola” as I pictured. We went for ISPNO… the International Symposium on Pediatric Neuro-Oncology and came away feeling encouraged and excited that tissue donation is absolutely the right focus for Swifty.  ISPNO is held every other year and doctors and researchers from all over the world attend. …

CBTTC Annual Conference Update

In May, Ginny McLean, Nikki Lyons and Al Gustafson represented Swifty at the annual conference of the Children’s Brain Tumor Tissue Consortium (CBTTC) in Philadelphia. Swifty is part of a fourteen foundation advisory council serving as a resource for the CBTTC. Unique in the world of philanthropy, the foundations function as a collaborative to advise,…