Impact Summer 2005 - The Jimmy Fund

Register for an event at www.jimmyfund.org.
Sherwood, Kotkowski, Maffei families establish
enduring memorial
When Daryl Layzer lost her battle with multiple myeloma, her family
wanted to thank her team of Dana-Farber physicians—led by Kenneth
Anderson, MD—and help ensure future patients received the same compassionate
care and had effective new treatment options available to them.
Layzer’s mother, Rosemary Kotkowski; husband, Jim Maffei; and sister and
brother-in-law, Emily and Ned Sherwood, banded together to carry out this wish,
giving $1 million to establish the Daryl E. Layzer Fund at DFCI in 1998. To expand
this fund, the family recently made an additional $250,000 gift.
“My father talked to me about giving back to those who come after us,” said
Kotkowski. “I believe that the superb care Dr. Anderson gave my daughter was made
possible because of the generosity of those who preceded her.”
The Sherwoods could not agree more. They said that Dana-Farber’s bench-to-bedside
model gave Daryl the opportunity to benefit from best practices in the field of
myeloma research while receiving personalized and loving care from Anderson and
his team.
Maffei added, “I saw what Daryl went through, and I want a better world for
myeloma patients.”
“We have three new myeloma drugs—Thalomid ® , Revlimid ® , and Velcade ® —as a
result of the initial support from Daryl’s family,” said Anderson, director of DFCI’s
Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center and the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine
at Harvard Medical School. “This new gift will help us meet our goal of making
available at least one new drug a year to treat patients.”
Left to right: Ned and Emily Sherwood, Rosemary Kotkowski, and Jim
Maffei believe that Kenneth Anderson, MD, and his DFCI colleagues
are on the fast track to finding a cure for multiple myeloma.
Jazz night hits a high note
for Friends of Dana-Farber
Nearly 300 guests dined and danced the
evening away for a good cause on May 13
at “A Night of Jazz,” hosted by the Friends
of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, an allvolunteer
organization. The eclectic event,
held at the State Room in Boston, raised
more than $400,000 for cancer research
and care through ticket sales and a tribute
book honoring the Bekenstein family for
its continued commitment to DFCI.
Internationally recognized vocalist
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers,
a star-studded eight-piece band, performed
classic jazz and blues numbers in
the authentic style of the 1940s and ‘50s.
During dinner, attendees were treated to
the smooth sounds of the Victor Mendoza
Trio while enjoying panoramic views of
Boston Harbor and the islands.
Left to right: “A Night of Jazz” Cochairs
Kelly Pesek and Maureen Champa
celebrate the event’s resounding success.
For more information about the Friends,
visit www.dana-farber.org/how/friends.
Oracle helps combat ER-negative breast cancer
“Oracle’s funding of
Dr. Brown’s work has
produced very significant
developments, year
after year.”
— Rosalie Gann
Research by Dana-Farber’s Myles Brown, MD,
into estrogen-receptor-negative (ER-negative)
breast cancer caught the eye of Oracle
Corporation. Impressed with his progress using a
technology called RNA interference (RNAi), the
world’s largest enterprise software company has now
made its third $100,000 gift to
help Brown combat this aggressive
form of breast cancer.
“Oracle’s funding of Dr. Brown’s
work has produced very significant developments, year
after year,” said Rosalie Gann, Oracle’s director of giving.
“The recent mapping of the human genome and
use of RNAi technology have multiplied the possibilities
of his research exponentially.”
ER-negative cancers account for about one-third
of all breast cancers, or some 65,000 cases a year, in
the United States. ER-negative tumors are so named because
they do not have receptors, or special proteins, that bind
to estrogen.
While this form of the disease is currently difficult to
treat, RNAi is enabling Brown to understand the causal
factors and critical pathways involved in
the growth and malignant behavior of
ER-negative tumors. By eliminating the
product of a specific gene and depriving
the cell of the gene’s activity, RNAi provides
researchers with an advantage in determining the
course of future therapies.
“This technology will ultimately lead to improvements in
the prevention and treatment of these tumors,” said Brown,
chief of Molecular and Cellular Oncology. “Oracle continues
to make it possible for us to increase our understanding
of the forces driving ER-negative breast cancer.”
12 Impact Summer 2005