Funding Cancer Research

New York, NY, January 11, 2012 – The Board of Directors of DeGregorio Family Foundation is pleased to announce the awarding of two research grants totaling $250,000.

Dr. David A. Frank, MD, PhD., Associate Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School was awarded $150,000 and Dr. Manish Shah, Director, Gastrointestinal Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University/New York-Presbyterian Hospital was awarded $100,000 after a highly competitive grant application and selection process which included proposals from some of the nation’s most prestigious medical research institutions.

Lynn DeGregorio, President of DeGregorio Family Foundation, was pleased by the quality of the applications and the projects proposed, saying: “DeGregorio Family Foundation has always sought to fund research that is innovative and will be a catalyst to collaboration. All of our applicants this year presented projects that would have increased the breadth and depth of research into these malignancies and we were excited to be able to make two such significant awards.”

Accomplishments in Research

The DeGregorio Family Foundation has raised more than $1.2 million to date. With limited financial resources, DFF has made significant inroads including:

• $515,000 has been raised to fund an early onset gastric cancer registry at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) that already boasts 700 participants. The MSKCC registry has opened satellite locations at Queens Cancer Center in New York and the University of Southern California domestically; as well as a hospital in Nigeria, with other international locations soon to be opened. These registries collect DNA and family histories to better understand the various types of stomach cancers. To read more on the registry, please visit the MSKCC Gastric Cancer Registry.
• As a result of research stimulated by the initial support, MSKCC has received additional peer reviewed funding awards of $200,000 to further expand gastric cancer research.
• Over $200,000 has been raised for a fund established in Eileen (DeGregorio) Dounce’s name at MSKCC to fund stomach cancer research.
• An additional $650,000 has been raised for DFF to award research grants for promising doctors and scientists. The 2009 DFF Grant for Upper GI research was awarded to Dr. Matthew Meyerson of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in the amount of $100,000.