Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with an exceedingly rare cancer, angiosarcoma. My medical team had only treated one other case in their collective history, the only thing they could tell me was that this was bad and there'd be someone else there to raise my children. The one thing they got right was transferring my care to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where my surgeon saved my life.

Over the next decade, I graduated with my PhD in biochemistry, studied cancer immunology as a postdoc, started a career at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where I was able to launch a nation-wide study in my own cancer with my entire medical team as collaborators. Together, we made discoveries that would lead to new treatment strategies for many angiosarcoma patients. I'm now at Precede Biosciences, helping to build a novel liquid biopsy platform based off of technology from the DFCI, to help realize the promise of precision medicine.

I am living proof of what happens when you fund cancer research at DFCI. I am alive. I am here straddling the bench as a patient and cancer research scientist, inspired daily by all of my colleagues, all of the patients we are desperate to save, and all of their family members, who are traveling with hope down the darkest paths imaginable.

This is my fifth year with PMC and with Team More Cowbell. It would mean a great deal to me to have your support as I make this commitment.