Dear Friends:

I guess I now have the Pan Mass Challenge (PMC) bug. I am excited to ride again from Wellesley to Bourne on Saturday August 2 (I have the bug but not brave enough yet to do the 2 days ??).  I will be joining Liza, Team 3G and thousands of others for the ride, as the PMC starts it’s journey towards the second billion dollars in total donations, year 46 of this incredible fundraising event.

Why do I ride and why support the ride? In July 2025, I will be at the Dana-Farber for 25 years. I have been involved in the care of thousands of patients and families in their cancer journeys - sharing in their challenges, wins, and resilience. I have cared for friends, colleagues, young adults in their 20s, folks in their 8th and 9th decade of life and everyone in between - each with their own unique experience and course. I also watched my mom and my mother-in-law battle cancer. I have seen incredible discoveries and advances in how we treat patients – with new and exciting drugs, more personalized approaches to the individual patients, and continued advancements in our whole patient approach to their care.

Despite such exciting and incredible advances, so much more research is needed. Here are just 2 examples. Many people have heard about immunotherapy – one of the most exciting advances in oncology this century – incredible results for some patients, but overall only about 30% of patients have cancers where immunotherapy has shown meaningful benefit – we need to understand how to use immunotherapy for the other 70%.  Another example is targeting a particular oncogene called KRAS.  90% of pancreatic cancer, 50% of colorectal cancer, 30% of lung cancers and a multiple handful percent of some other cancers will have mutations in KRAS, which up til 5 years ago was considered undruggable – nothing worked despite a lot of efforts. However, that is changing and there are now a few FDA approved drugs and many more drugs in clinical trials that target KRAS – but we have so much to learn and research dollars from the PMC are going to help us get there.  Earlier this year, DFCI launched the RAS center to bring together clinical trialists, translational researchers and basic scientists to figure RAS out and bring therapies that will change the course of disease for more and more patients.

PMC dollars make a difference in what we do at Dana-Farber and your support is so appreciated.  Below I have links to support Liza and my ride. Some of you will get letters from both of us and don’t feel any obligation to donate twice. Thank you so much in advance for considering support of this year’s PMC.

To support Jeff: https://donate.pmc.org/JM1067

To support Liza: https://donate.pmc.org/LM0158

Thanks so much for considering

Jeff