Apr 02, 2016
April 2, 2016
Apr 02, 2016
Today, Sam would have turned 11 years old. For those of you who might be reading this for the first time, Samuel Alexander Jeffers was born on 4/2/2005. Suddenly, and out-of-the blue, on 9/20/2012 he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. On 10/20/2013 he died.
Certainly a lot of things happened in those intervening years between Sam’s birth and death: some mundane; many truly spectacular, precious and cherished; and some ghastly and tragic.

April 2nd, 2009-Sam’s 4th birthday. He asked for a cow.
Sam’s Foundation supports many childhood cancer research efforts and provides financial assistance for local families of children with cancer. As part of this overall mission, we are currently trying to raise money to fund a fulltime researcher at Weill-Cornell Medicine who will study thalamic gliomas—the deadly brain tumor that killed Sam. I would like to take just a moment to explain exactly why we support targeted research on specific—sometimes rarer—forms of childhood cancer. I believe that there’s something of significant importance to be learned from the rationale behind this kind of targeted research.

April 2nd, 2010-Sam’s 5th birthday
The second, perhaps less obvious but immensely important reason to support targeted research for childhood cancer is because of the fact that what we learn from doingso is very likely to have “spillover” benefits elsewhere in the broader fight against all cancers. Let’s take just one example.
Project Violetis a collaborative effort by Dr. Jim Olson and researchers at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, in conjunction with Seattle Children’s Hospital. In their work devoted to rarer types of children’s brain cancers, Dr. Olson and his team pioneered something calledTumor Paint, which acts as a “molecular flashlight” by chemically adhering to cancer cells and causing them to light up. Thousands of times more sensitive than MRI imagery, Tumor Paint enables surgeons to easily distinguish between deadly cancer cells and the surrounding healthy tissue, making tumors more operable. This amazing discovery came about because of the dedication of researchers spending their time solely devoted to vigorously searching for a cure for children’s cancers, especially rarer and deadly children’s brain tumors. Now the entire world stands to benefit from their discovery.

April 2nd, 2011-Sam turns 6.
What we as a society have been doing to date in the battle against childhood cancer has not been as effective as it should be. The same poisons we use to treat the 65-year old woman with breast cancer and the same radiation we use on the 75-year old man with prostate cancer are not necessarily suitable for the 6-year old little girl with Ewing’s Sarcoma or the 8-year old little boy with a brain tumor. In fact, in some cases, the treatments themselves are—literally—deadly. Just because we discovered fire and use it as an important tool in the cooking process does not mean that we suddenly know anything about making a great veal piccata.
The same tools we use in the battle against adult cancer do not necessarily “trickle down” to benefit children’s cancers; yet, as the Project Violet example shows, discoveries and advances made in the fight to overcome childhood cancer can and do “trickle up” to adults. We have spent billions and billions of dollars for adult cancer research and invested an embarrassingly small amount on childhood cancer.

April 2nd, 2013-Sam turns 8
Please do what you can to join in the fight. If you would have given Sammy a birthday gift this year, please consider a gift to his Foundation. And consider it a gift from you to the world.
Happy Birthday Sammy.

2013-Sam’s last birthday
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