NEWS ABOUT THE CURE

Exciting New Tool Helps DIPG Families Find Trials Easier

This week, The Cure Starts Now rolled out a new tool in their ever expanding arsenal for families fighting Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG).  Building on the extensive repository of research and information at DIPG.org, families can now signup for daily or weekly updates for DIPG specific research to be delivered to their email inbox.  The new tool expands on their already popular research search page at DIPG.org by giving them instant notifications when trials become open or available. …

Characteristics of Long-Term Survivors of DIPG

The following paper was originally published in Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2018.  Researchers compare clinical, radiologic, and histomolecular characteristics between short-term survivors and long-term survivors of DIPG using data compiled from the International DIPG /DMG Registry and their 1,100+ patient records collected.  The DIPG/DMG Registry is fully funded by the DIPG Collaborative and The Cure Starts Now.  A 5 country alliance of over 100 hospitals and over 1,100 DIPG/DMG patients, i…

Dr. Adam Green provides an update on his DIPG research for The Cure Starts Now

Toward a Multimodality Cure for DIPG: Investigation of Intratumoral Drug Penetration and Craniospinal Irradiation “We work on a lot of different projects in DIPG, but with our recent Cure Starts Now grants, we wanted to look at some really fundamental questions about how DIPG is treated currently and how we can improve that going forward. So, the current standard of care treatment for DIPG is focal radiation just to the pons and we know that it's transiently effective, but that the tumor always…

Are There Any Survivors of DIPG?

The diagnosis of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) or diffuse midline glioma (DMG) is often casually regarded as a terminal cancer, but what are the true statistics regarding survival? For the first time since the classification of DIPG and DMG we now have these numbers due to the selfless participation of over 1,400 patients in the International DIPG/DMG Registry and the SIOPe (European) DIPG Registry. The largest linked database of DIPG and DMG data comprising the cooperative efforts of…

Florida DIPG Family Selected as the Newest Chapter of The Cure Starts Now

Anthony Franzini's family uses the grief of losing their son to create a legacy of cancer research for other kids like him. Cincinnati, OH | January 23, 2020 — The Cure Starts Now Foundation has selected its 41st chapter in Port Orange, Florida in honor of Anthony Franzini who was diagnosed with DIPG in June of 2017. Anthony went through 6 weeks of radiation and chemo treatments, however that didn’t buy him much time. He earned his angel wings four short months after being diagnosed shortly aft…

Creating Good Cancer Research

In previous articles we’ve discussed key fundamentals of The Cure Starts Now grant funding process. And while this helps to perfect what we fund, how exactly does the Medical Advisory Council of The Cure Starts Now keep creating and finding good projects? The first thing to understand is that The Cure Starts Now is the “un-charity”. Rather than to simply assume the mistakes of the past, we believe the model of cancer research must be revolutionized. We just can fund the same projects others fun…

How The Cure Starts Now Funds Better Research

In just 12 short years, The Cure Starts Now has already been at the forefront of many of the world's most innovative cancer fighting strategies.  Why? How does a small charity with a limited focus match the impact of some of the world’s largest charities?  The answer is strategy. Funding cancer research is just about how you fund as much as what you fund.  And when you have limited funds, the last thing you want is to waste critical dollars.  That's why every dollar spent by The Cure Starts Now…

The Cure Starts Now and Partners Renew Oncoceutics Expanded Access of ONC201

In partnership with xCures, Cancer Commons and the Musella Foundation, The Cure Starts Now is pleased to announce a renewal of $100,000 for the Oncoceutics Expanded access of ONC201, bringing the total contribution by The Cure Starts Now to over $267,000. Part of this program is an intermediate size Expanded access protocol for ONC201 in patients with H3 K27M-mutant glioma entitled “ONC018: Expanded access to ONC201 for Patients with H3 K27M-mutant and/or Midline High Grade Gliomas” that was r…

Dr. Mark Kieran Discusses the DIPG/DMG Symposium and the Efforts of The Cure Starts Now in Facilitating Research

Dr. Mark Kieran, Lead for Pediatrics at Bristol-Myers Squibb About Understanding and Collaboration “I’ve been coming to this symposium now for a while and the most important aspect is to really broaden the understanding as to get the community to work together. DIPG is a relatively rare tumor, it affects a small number of patients around the world. Bringing all of those investigators into one place and to a unified atmosphere where they can really begin to see not just what they’re doing…

Dr. Michelle Monje Discusses Overall Progress in DIPG and DMG Research and The Cure Starts Now's Support of Her Efforts

Dr. Michelle Monje, Pediatric Neuro-oncologist, Stanford University School of Medicine “When I first came to the DIPG field after taking care of a child with DIPG in medical school I realized that I needed to work on this scientifically and take care of these children in the clinic. At that time we knew absolutely nothing about the disease. We didn’t have any experimental model systems to study it, we didn’t know what mutations were driving it, we didn’t have any idea what potential therapeut…