EVERY CHILD DESERVES TO GROW UP.

Collaborative teams allow researchers, clinicians, and families to pool their knowledge and resources, breaking down silos and accelerating progress. When we initially started meeting researchers and looking at the progress toward a cure for childhood brain cancer, we realized researchers weren’t collaborating. We had researchers around the world holding different pieces of the puzzle but no collaborative process to put the pieces together.

We introduced The Brain Cancer Symposium in 2011 as the world’s largest international medical research conference focusing on terminal childhood brain cancers. Researchers, doctors, families and foundations come from across the globe to discuss and collaborate on unpublished discoveries.

We also joined efforts with independent DIPG/DMG foundations from around the world to establish the DIPG/DMG Collaborative in order to support research, enhance transparency, and eliminate research duplication.

Data registries streamline research by linking patient information and treatment outcomes, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the disease.

Without a linked data registry, researchers could only look at data collected during a single trial, not the patients entire treatment journey, severely limiting their ability to identify patterns or monitor treatment impacts over a larger time period.

The registry was developed as a collaborative effort to centralize & standardize the collection of clinical data & tumor samples from DIPG & DMG patients to serve as valuable educational resource for physicians.

Time is critical when it comes to terminal childhood brain cancers. Before treatments can reach a child's bedside, they must go through years of testing on adult patients. This becomes a huge barrier with childhood brain cancers because there are very few adult patients and even fewer expected to survive the length of a clinical trial.

Our work has improved trial accessibility and efficiency, allowing children to receive cutting-edge treatments faster, offering them hope for extended time and better quality of life.

We continue to advocate for better policies like the Promising Pathway Act (PPA) which would not only double the speed of revolutionary treatments but may also uncover the cure we’ve been seeking for over a century.

Translational studies are the bridge between discoveries in the lab and treatments that can be tested in patients.

Some foundations focus heavily on funding clinical trials rather than translational studies because they know donors are more likely to donate to a treatment that can help a child now than donate to research that will help a child in the future.

But without funding translational studies, many groundbreaking ideas might never make it to the clinical trial stage. That’s why we are dedicated to strategically funding the most promising ideas now, to maximize the chance that we will save lives and find the cure in the future.

We’ve funded over 150 research grants across six continents.

Every grant proposal is reviewed by our Medical Advisory Committee to determine relevance to our overall research strategy, Strategic Advisory Committee made up of brain cancer families, and Board of Directors to ensure the research is efficient and not duplicative.

By investing in comprehensive clinical research, we’re laying the groundwork for breakthroughs that can help children worldwide.

The Cure Starts Now champions innovative ideas by taking a generational approach to funding.

Rather than getting distracted by every bright and shiny new research proposal, we make long-term investments in promising ideas. Establishing collaborative relationships with researchers as they develop their innovation.

We end up with projects that aren’t just revolutionary—they are redefining what’s possible in childhood cancer research.

Innovation is at the core of our strategy, ensuring that every project we fund moves us closer to a cure.

Cancer is a complex disease and the cure for cancer will not be a single discovery found by a single researcher.

Progress toward the cure requires sticking with a strategy that works and The Cure Starts Now is committed to every step.

From establishing collaboratives to funding clinical trials and groundbreaking studies, our process is proven, and our impact is measurable. With each iteration, we gain new insights, forge new partnerships, and take another step toward curing childhood brain cancer.

We won’t stop until the mission is complete—because every child deserves a tomorrow.