Dear Friends and Family,
One year after a partial knee replace, a great ski season and a new season of bike riding, golf and boating, I am grateful to be able to write to you all and express my desire to ride in my 9th Pan Mass Challenge the first weekend of August 2-3, 2025. I feel great at 69 years old and have had incredible support from my wife Elizabeth and all of you to continue the PMC journey.
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter as last year I dedicated my ride to my cousin, Pat Everett. Pat lost his battle with Cancer last Fall and his older brother “CJ”, (Clinton Everett III) also passed this past winter losing his battle with pancreatic cancer. Our poor dog Zermatt also died of cancer at 7 years. This has been a rough one for the family and honestly discouraging. I am often left wondering if we are really gaining in the fight with cancer but as you can see by the honor roll below there are many survivors and many of these great people would not be here today without the kind of treatment that Dana Farber and others are offering to us mainly due to technological advances in detection and treatment of cancer. This research costs a lot of money.
With all of you, my great supporters, we will continue to donate to brain tumor survivor, Dmitri Itzovitz (donated 1/3rd of our total donation to the “Dmitri Fund” for children with brain cancer via Dana Farber for the past 8 years). Dmitri is 22 and moving forward in his life now a young man and testimony to Dana Farber research.
We will continue, with your help, to support Dr. Cigall Kadoch, and her group of resolute biologists in their fight to discover the root cause of the most difficult cancers. See a great PMC feature article (well worth reading) on Cigall who was honored by PMC this year and our team has been supporting for 7 years:
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Dr. Cigall Kadoch Named Inaugural “Starr Investigator” at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
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Cigall Kadoch, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), has been named the inaugural incumbent of Dana-Farber’s Starr Investigatorship. Endowed investigatorships at Dana-Farber support exceptionally creative and committed scientists and physicians at the mid-points of their careers.
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The Starr Investigatorship has been made possible thanks to a generous donation from Josh and Anita Bekenstein. Josh is a 32-year rider and Chairman of the Board of Dana-Farber and Anita is a 19-year PMC rider.
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The investigatorship is named to honor PMC Founder and Chairman, Billy Starr, and his wife, PMC Director of Stewardship, Meredith Beaton Starr, for their decades of leadership and vision. The PMC has raised more than $1 billion to date in support for cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber and the Starr Investigatorship will provide critical funding for Dr. Kadoch’s ongoing research.
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The Kadoch Laboratory, established in 2014 when Dr. Kadoch was just 28 years old, studies the structure and function of large molecular “machines” that control the architecture of our genetic material, or DNA. Highly coordinated modulation of DNA architecture is required to direct which sets of genes are turned on and off at a given time to facilitate normal cell function. Failure of this process, known as “gene expression,” is akin to misplayed notes in an orchestra, setting an entire symphony off course, and lies at the heart of many human cancers. Kadoch is hopeful that the Starr Investigatorship will help translate the cutting-edge, ongoing work in her laboratory to new treatments and cures for cancer. Because of her work, many cancer patients, including several at Dana-Farber, are already being treated with new early-stage protocols aimed to evaluate the potential of the biology Kadoch and her team have uncovered in the clinic. “The PMC has supported our laboratory research since my recruitment to Dana-Farber to start my career and has enabled us to propel forward the understanding and therapeutic targeting of an entirely new area of biology central to both adult and pediatric cancers,” said Kadoch. Kadoch has become a leading expert in chromatin and gene regulation. She is internationally recognized for her groundbreaking studies in these areas and has received numerous prestigious awards and research grants to support her academic laboratory at Harvard, including the new Starr Investigatorship endowment. Additionally, over the past several years, Dr. Kadoch has been recognized with the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award,?Forbes?magazine 30 Under 30,?Popular Science?Brilliant 10, the AAAS Wachtel Cancer Research Prize, the AACR Outstanding Achievement in Basic Cancer Research, the 2024 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research and most recently, the 2024 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, among many others. Kadoch has a longstanding relationship with the PMC and has received research funding from PMC Team Fat Boy / Slim Sisters since 2018. “It’s an immense honor to have an investigatorship named in recognition of my life’s ambition to help one day eradicate cancer,” said PMC Founder and Chairman Billy Starr. “There is no one more deserving of this endowment than Dr. Cigall Kadoch, who represents the bright future of innovation and impactful progress in cancer research and treatment. Meredith and I look forward to bearing witness to the impact she will undoubtedly make as the inaugural incumbent of the Starr Investigatorship.”
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PMC Founder & Chairman Billy Starr and Dr. Cigall Kadoch at PMC 2024 Opening Ceremonies in Sturbridge.
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100% of every rider-raised dollar goes to
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute The PMC is presented by
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Your generosity has made a difference, and it inspires me to keep going. PMC has raised over $1 billion for Cancer research and is the largest cancer fundraiser in the World. We have a goal to raise over $76 million this year. I need to ask for your help again: Donate if you can and no worries if not.
Let us all pray for those with Cancer, those that support them and those that are working to fight it. You are all a big reason for my efforts, and I appreciate each of you.
Please go online at https://donate.pmc.org/ then type Richard OMeara or rider number RO0055 into the “find a rider box” and it is easy from there or drop me a check made out to PAN Mass Challenge. I will deposit the checks to PMC weekly. Again, my Rider number is RO0055.
Richard O’Meara
10 Amazon Dr.
Portsmouth, RI 02871
Sincerely,
Rich O
Rich O’Meara’s Cancer Honor Roll
Mrs. Hannan
Marjorie Hawes
Cindy Sullivan
Ken Cummings
Peg Brown
Catherine Cummings
Phyllis O’Meara
Bill O’Meara
Toddy Everett
Hunter Hall
Dianne Herbst
Kathy Everett
Jean Everett
Bob Everett
Reiko Wilson
Harry Horvitz
Lois Horvitz
Nadia VanCamp
Melissa McManus
Lindy Gay Lewandowski
Barbara Prichard
Ann Danhauer
Pam Pingeton
Steve Fish
Peter McCourt
Heidi Fish
Joseph (Bean) Cunningham
Pam Siguler
Pat Everett
Clinton (CJ) Everett
Zermatt (the family dog)
And too many more!
Survivors!!
Cathy O’Sullivan
Peter VanLancker
Erin Cummings
Mary Everett Wasko
Carole Everett
Jim Farley
Carolyn Mullenary
Pam Schneider
Usman Ismail
Marty Hewitt
Steve Felici
And many others that you and I thankfully still get to see
