I am riding the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) bike-a-thon for a sixth year as part of the Precision for Kids team in honor of the young people I take care of in the Jimmy Fund Clinic and their families. The Precision for Kids team has been riding for the past 9 years to support research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that brings the latest in technologies to patients with difficult to cure cancers.

The funding supports research into the best way to profile the cancer genetic code to enable doctors to take better care of patients. This approach, precision oncology, identifies the key genetic events driving a patient's individual cancer and helps the treating doctor make a more precise diagnosis, find a treatment perfectly matched to the genetic events and more closely monitor response to treatment. Every dollar given goes directly to research to improve outcomes for children, young people and adults with difficult to treat cancers. Admin costs and other fees get paid elsewhere. Your entire contribution supports life-saving research and care. Importantly, the research activities supported by your donation reach and impact patients directly resulting in more effective cancer treatments with fewer side effects.

2023-2024 was a big year for Precision for Kids supported work. 825 children have been able to participate in the iCat study thanks to the P4K team's fundraising! Kids continue to directly benefit from study participation and the tumor profiling this team supports; kids like Jack who was 9 months old when he was found to have a huge cancerous tumor extending from his belly to his leg. The tumor did not shrink with chemotherapy and was not able to be removed with surgery because of the size; things did not look good. The Precision For Kids supported precision medicine program led to a medication taken by mouth that directly counteracts the gene abnormality making the cancer grow. This new treatment not only had fewer side effects than the chemotherapy but it also shrank the tumor significantly. His pain decreased, he started walking, the tumor was successfully removed and he is doing great! We've also entered a new phase of the work where we can use a simple blood draw instead of a tumor biopsy to identify the genes in the tumor. Recently, this new approach led to new treatment and new hope for a child with advanced cancer with no other options. We are excited to see where this new approach will lead us in 2024.

Thanks! Katie