When Evan was diagnosed in January, 2009, his cancer was very advanced and his prognosis was poor. Treatment success with more advanced cancers is limited and much more work needs to be done. On October 12, 2012, the Foundation established a research fund in Evan’s name with a $50,000 donation to the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. The funds were allocated to the research lab of Evan’s doctor, Alice Shaw, M.D., Ph.D. The goal of her research is to develop new therapies that target the specific genetic make-up of an individual’s cancer. This new approach helps speed the discovery and delivery of new targeted therapies into direct patient care as each patient’s cancer cells can be analyzed to determine the specific genetic make-up of the cancer.
In Evan’s case, he had an excellent response to one of the targeted therapies for about a year and then a second response to a different targeted therapy for a shorter period of time.
