For families facing high-grade glioma (HGG), the deadliest childhood brain cancer, the diagnosis often feels like a storm: dark, fast, and overwhelming. Treatments are limited, harmful, and too often ineffective. For more than 40 years, progress has been slow, treatments have remained painfully toxic, and children have borne the weight of a system that simply did not have the tools, data, or alignment it needed to change the forecast.

But this moment is different. And for the first time ever, thanks to the influence, funding, and relentless advocacy of Bridge To A Cure Foundation, the entire pediatric brain tumor community is coming together behind a series of unified goals:

• Drive shared data collection, access, and harmonization
• Cure high-grade glioma
• Pursue non-toxic treatments
• Leverage the full power of data and AI to get there faster

This is the culmination of the Bridge To A Cure mission from day one: to unite and transform the childhood cancer community’s approach to research with the goal of cutting the childhood cancer death rate by 50% by 2030.

Why HGG Has Been So Hard to Cure — and Why That’s Changing

High-grade glioma moves quickly. It infiltrates healthy brain tissue, resists nearly all available therapies, and evolves fast enough to outrun scientific understanding. For years, researchers lacked the visibility needed to track the disease’s behavior, not because they lacked dedication, but because they lacked something fundamental: shared, high-quality data.

Each hospital held only a few cases. Each research center saw only fragments. As a result, discovery moved slowly, and families waited under a sky that didn’t seem to clear.

Thanks to the combined momentum of our foundation’s advocacy and the Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN), that reality has shifted. And by bringing dozens of childhood cancer foundations and more than 35 pediatric institutions together and uniting their data, imaging, biospecimens, and expertise, CBTN has created the largest collaborative pediatric brain cancer community in the world, and with it, new clarity, new insights, and new momentum.

This shared ecosystem has set the stage for something once unimaginable: real insight, real collaboration, and real possibility.

The BTAC–CBTN Partnership: Preparing 900 Datasets for a Brighter Future

Among the most extraordinary achievements of our network is the contribution made by 900 children with HGG, whose families shared clinical records, imaging, and tumor data in the hope that no other family would weather the storm alone.

To honor their courage, Bridge To A Cure Foundation is funding the work needed to prepare these 900 datasets to FDA gold-standard quality, the essential step for:

• powering new AI-driven research,
• supporting regulatory submissions,
• designing smarter, safer clinical trials, and
• moving toward less-toxic treatments that protect childhood.

This work turns raw information into a stable foundation where new discoveries can finally take root.

Bridge To A Cure is committed to completing the HGG dataset validation within a single year—an ambitious yet essential goal. By the end of 2026, this data will fully power the RADIANT AI pediatric research platform, enabling scientists to detect patterns no human eye could see and accelerating the development of safer, more effective therapies children urgently need.

A Gathering of Leaders: The SU2C High-Grade Glioma Summit

This January marks a pivotal shift. Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) will host the first-ever national pediatric High-Grade Glioma Summit, bringing together leaders in oncology, genomics, AI, and clinical innovation.

This transformative Summit reflects the growing momentum across the entire field, shaped in part by years of Bridge To A Cure’s advocacy, coalition-building, and insistence that the community align around curing pediatric glioblastoma. The call for unity, shared data, and non-toxic treatments, championed consistently by Bridge To A Cure, helped create the conditions for a gathering of this scale to become a national priority. Summit attendees will come together, in person, to meet around these shared goals and collaborate on ways to achieve them.

Bridge To A Cure President Robert (Bob) Martin has been invited to join as a panelist, representing:

• the voice of families,
• the need for scientific collaboration,
• the promise of data-driven research, and
• the urgency of developing non-toxic treatments.

Bob’s leadership ensures the movement to cure HGG remains centered on the children who need it most and the families who have already endured far too many storms.

2026: A Break in the Clouds

Across childhood brain cancer research, the weather pattern is changing:

• Data is no longer siloed.
• Scientists are no longer working alone.
• AI is no longer a distant promise — it’s becoming a real tool.
• Families’ contributions are finally being honored through action.
• Institutions are aligning under shared momentum.

These are rays of light that are bursting through years of cloudy progress. And as the validated HGG dataset comes online in 2026, paired with Radiant AI insights and guided by collaborations strengthened through the SU2C summit, we approach a horizon that has remained out of reach for far too long: the possibility of safer, smarter, more effective treatments for children with high-grade glioma.

How You Can Help

Preparing the HGG dataset is not optional. It’s the foundational step that makes every discovery possible. And now, thanks to a $50,000 matching gift from a generous anonymous donor, every gift through December 31 is doubled.

This funding drives a new dawn for kids with cancer through:

• FDA-grade data validation
• AI-enabled research through RADIANT
• Collaborative scientific alignment heading into 2026
• BTAC’s advocacy at the SU2C summit
• And progress toward the non-toxic treatments children urgently need

Your support doesn’t just fund a project. It brings light into a space that has lived under clouds for far too long.

A Brighter Horizon for Children

We cannot change the past, but together we are reshaping the future, one dataset, one discovery, one act of generosity at a time. And families who have endured the darkest days are beginning to see the possibility of a brighter tomorrow.

As we enter 2026, hope is no longer just an idea — it’s our direction.

Double your impact. Fulfill the promise.
Donate through December 31: bit.ly/BTAC-double-impact

In 2024, Bridge To A Cure Foundation turned turbulence into progress. What began as a stormy forecast for childhood cancer research ended with clear signs of brighter days ahead, thanks to a community determined to improve outcomes for kids everywhere.

A Year Defined by Progress

Last year marked critical milestones in Bridge To A Cure’s plan to reduce pediatric brain cancer 50% by 2030.

• Fueled Innovation: We helped advance the M³ scientific approach, integrating multidisciplinary expertise, multiomics data, and multimodal insights to accelerate breakthroughs to cures and cultivate more personalized therapies.
• Expanded Data Access: Our support enabled more than 800 new tissue samples to be processed for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas, now housed in the NIH-funded Kids First Data Resource Center, where it powers discovery alongside 35 other pediatric and rare disease datasets.
• Drove AI-Powered Breakthroughs: Through collaborations like the $10 million ARPA-H RADIANT project, we laid the groundwork for real-time clinical data integration—an innovation that promises to unlock faster, better-informed treatments tailored to each child.
• Catalyzed Safer Therapies: Strategic funding advanced studies in immunotherapy, apoptosis, and angiogenesis—pioneering new ways to fight tumors without devastating side effects.

These aren’t just research terms—they represent real hope for children and families who deserve a future beyond the shadow of cancer.

Robert Martin, Founder and President of Bridge To A Cure Foundation, reflects on this incredible year of progress:

“Our journey began with a promise—one born from love, forged through loss, and carried forward by hope. What started as a vow to one child has become a mission for all: to reduce childhood cancer deaths by 50% by 2030. Together, we are turning storms into sunshine for children everywhere.”

Why It Matters

The truth remains stark: childhood cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death in kids, and most treatments are decades old. But 2024 proved something powerful: collaboration works, data saves lives, and innovation accelerates cures.

The Forecast for 2025: Bold and Clear

Our mission is unwavering: unite and transform the childhood cancer research community to reduce deaths by 50% by 2030. To get there, 2025 is a year of bold initiatives:

• Strengthening Global Data Ecosystems: Invest in platforms that equip researchers across institutions and borders.
• Expanding AI Capabilities: Build AI-powered analytics tools that turn complex data into actionable treatments faster than ever.
• Championing Policy for Progress: Advocate for legislation that sustains research funding and removes barriers to discovery.
• Mobilize the Bridge To A Cure Movement: Engage with families, peer foundations, and industry partners to eliminate silos and amplify impact.

The clouds are breaking, but the work is far from done. Together, we can turn today’s breakthroughs into tomorrow’s cures.

What keeps Bridge To A Cure pushing ahead in 2025? We’re simply Fulfilling the Promise made. You can help us keep our commitment to families facing the devastating effects of brain tumors. Read our 2024 Annual Report. Share our mission. Give to fuel breakthroughs that will save our kids.

Over this past year, Bridge To A Cure has played a key role in accelerating life-saving discoveries for childhood brain tumors through our partnership with the Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN), a worldwide leader in pediatric data collection, sharing, and collaboration.

In fact, every dollar donated through Bridge To A Cure in 2024 strengthened the vital work conducted by our coalition, empowering hundreds of researchers with the tools and infrastructure they need to unlock cures. It further enforces the collaborative spirit that will result in better treatments and, ultimately, a cure for these deadly diseases.

Together, we’re changing how research is conducted and the speed at which discoveries are made.

We’re thrilled to share some of the biggest highlights of 2024:

Expanding Critical Data: With funding from several sources, including Bridge To A Cure, CBTN processed hundreds of new patient samples in 2024, significantly enriching the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas. This invaluable resource allows researchers to delve deeper into the unique biology of these tumors, paving the way for targeted and more effective treatments.

Enhancing Global Collaboration: The CAVATICA software platform, a cornerstone of this partnership’s research efforts, supported over 1,500 global research projects in 2024. Upgrades to this essential tool have improved usability and real-time data access, fostering seamless collaboration among researchers worldwide and accelerating the pace of discovery.

Advancing AI-Driven Solutions: With the resources of CBTN and supported by our coalition, we’ve made significant strides in developing AI-ready datasets and predictive models for some of the most challenging types of pediatric brain tumors, including diffuse midline gliomas (DMG) and medulloblastomas. These innovative approaches hold immense promise for deeper insights and the development of new treatment strategies.

Strengthening Pediatric Proteomic Data: CBTN maintains the largest cohort of pediatric proteomic (proteins) data for brain tumors, expanding it by 30% in 2024. This enriched dataset is crucial for advancing personalized medicine and developing treatments tailored to each child’s unique tumor characteristics.

Building A Data-Driven Research Community

In October 2017, Bridge To A Cure Founder Bob Martin met with National Cancer Institute NCI) Director Dr. Ned Sharpless to share his recommendation to build a national childhood cancer database that was easily accessible by researchers. This idea is realized in the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI), authorized by Congress just two years later and funded at $50 million annually for 10 years.

This crucial resource was made possible through harmonizing data using a unified lexicon, an endeavor funded by the Bridge To A Cure Foundation through the Pediatric Cancer Data Commons (PCDC). By uniting data from various sources, including the Kids First Data Resource Center, St. Jude Cloud, and the Treehouse Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, CCDI aims to foster a collaborative research environment where scientists can access more data, tools, and resources than ever before.

A RADIANT Approach to Cures

For years, Bridge To A Cure has called to expedite a united approach to scientific discovery through technological advancement. Now, CBTN stands at the forefront of pediatric cancer research, spearheading initiatives like the government-funded RADIANT project. In collaboration with leading technology companies, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Valsera, and Mulesoft (a SalesForce company), this ambitious initiative aims to integrate AI seamlessly into all aspects of pediatric cancer research. AI and leading-edge technologies are significant aspects of how Bridge To A Cure will achieve our mission of reducing the childhood cancer death rate by 50% by 2030. That’s why we invested $200,000 to seed this vital program. Through this investment, CBTN created patient data pipelines that seamlessly integrate from local hospital record platforms to the PBTA.

Through RADIANT, CBTN transforms how we approach diagnosis and treatment planning, providing researchers with unprecedented access to AI-ready datasets, advanced tools, and leading-edge resources. With continued support from Bridge To A Cure and others, RADIANT will set a new standard for personalized care, bringing us closer to a future where every child diagnosed with a brain tumor doesn’t just survive but thrives.

What Lies Ahead

Over the past seven years, Bridge To A Cure Foundation has transformed and united the childhood cancer community. We’ve built a powerful network of researchers, doctors, families, and advocates, all working to end childhood brain cancer.

During this time, we’ve seen significant strides in advancing scientific research and fostering an environment where innovation and hope flourish. The accomplishments of 2024 are the culmination of many years of hard work, determination, and a shared belief that we can overcome the challenges that have long hindered the progress that keeps us from ending this brutal disease. Bridge To A Cure has created real, lasting change, from breakthroughs in data-driven research and patient care to new partnerships with leading research institutions, tech companies, and the federal government. We are poised to make even more incredible strides with these achievements as the framework for new advancement.

For 2025 and beyond, Bridge To A Cure is urging foundations and philanthropists that share our vision to invest $100 million in dedicated brain tumor research funds. By mirroring the collaborative success of our research institution partners, these funds will empower scientists to bypass traditional barriers and accelerate groundbreaking therapies and prevention strategies. And, by supporting this groundbreaking research, we’re investing in a brighter future for families. Every contribution, no matter the size, translates into tangible progress. Your generosity fuels real hope that we will conquer childhood brain tumors and protect the health and happiness of our children.

How Tissue Donation Saves Lives in Childhood Cancer and Rare Diseases

For families facing the life-altering news that their child is diagnosed with cancer or a rare disease, hope can feel scarce. Traditional treatments often have limitations, and finding effective therapies for these complex conditions can be a long and arduous journey.

This is where tissue donation steps in, offering a beam of light in a seemingly dark tunnel. Among the many ways that Bridge To A Cure works towards accomplishing its mission is by strongly supporting this practice. Donated tissue samples become invaluable tools for researchers, allowing them to unlock the secrets of these illnesses and develop life-saving treatments.

Why Tissue Donation Matters for Childhood Cancers and Rare Diseases

Childhood cancers and rare diseases are different compared to adult cancers. They are often more aggressive, have unique genetic mutations, and respond differently to treatments. Due to their relative rarity, research funding and readily available tissue samples can be scarce, further hindering progress.

Donated tissue plays a critical role in this fight

Understanding the Disease: Tissue samples allow researchers to study the disease at a cellular and molecular level. This helps them identify the genetic mutations causing the illness and understand how it progresses.

Developing New Therapies: With a deeper understanding of the disease, researchers can develop targeted therapies. These therapies can be more effective for specific types of childhood cancers and rare diseases, with fewer side effects for young patients.

Testing Existing Treatments: Tissue samples allow scientists to test the efficacy of existing treatments and identify which ones work best for specific patients. This personalized approach to medicine can significantly improve treatment outcomes.

Developing Diagnostics: Tissue analysis can help develop new diagnostic tools to identify these diseases earlier and more accurately. Early detection is crucial for improving survival rates in children with cancer and rare diseases.

The Gift of a Lifetime

Without the unwavering support from organizations like Bridge To A Cure, the Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) couldn’t display the transformative power of tissue donation. Established in 2011, CBTN is the world’s largest biobank dedicated to childhood brain tumors, and Bridge To A Cure plays a vital role in its success.

With over 5,500 patients and 2,500 family members enrolled, CBTN provides a rich resource of tissue samples for researchers worldwide. This network, supported by Bridge To A Cure and other powerful organizations, operates through hospitals and research institutions across the globe. When a child undergoes surgery or a biopsy for a brain tumor, families have the option to donate a small portion of the removed tissue to CBTN.

Bridge To A Cure’s contribution to childhood brain tumor research is far-reaching through this collaborative effort. Thanks to CBTN’s vast collection of tissue samples, generously donated by families and facilitated by advocacy, researchers have made significant strides in understanding the biology of these tumors, leading to the development of new and more effective treatment strategies. This collaboration between organizations like Bridge To A Cure and CBTN is among the reasons the goal of reducing the childhood cancer death rate by 50% by 2030 is even remotely possible.

The Future of Tissue Donation

The story of the power of tissue donation is being told daily, as evidenced by the pace of advancing research for childhood cancer and rare diseases. As tissue donation programs grow and expand, we can expect even greater breakthroughs in the fight against these devastating illnesses.

Ways You Can Contribute to the Cause

Spread Awareness: Talk to your family and friends about the importance of tissue donation. You can also share information and resources from organizations like Bridge To A Cure on social media and engage with posts about these important topics.

Consider Tissue Donation: If you or someone you know has a child facing a diagnosis of cancer or a rare disease, inquire about tissue donation options at your hospital.

Give to Support Enrolled Families: Tissue donation requires the cooperation of families, doctors, coordinators, labs, and biobanks. This complex but critical web is needed to successfully make use of this fragile tissue. When you give to Bridge To A Cure, proceeds support this worldwide network and the amazing children who make this research possible.

By working together, we can ensure that tissue donation remains a beacon of hope for children facing cancer and rare diseases, offering them brighter futures and a chance to thrive.

The nonprofit sector in the United States boasts a staggering number of over 1,540,000 organizations, each dedicated to various causes. But not all nonprofits are equal. The disparate nonprofit landscape underscores the challenges for small nonprofits: only 3% generate revenue above $5 million. These nonprofits are large national institutions, many with revenue in the billions, and with tremendous influence. Most of the remaining 97% raise less than $99,000 a year.

Why Smaller Foundations Fail

While size is one reason many nonprofits struggle to achieve meaningful impact there are other perhaps more important reasons. The challenges that plague the sector, and why a substantial portion of these organizations are not effective are attributed to operational shortfalls and inapt strategies.

Operational Shortfalls

Most nonprofits are started by someone touched by a personal tragedy or motivated by an injustice. While their hearts are in the right place, their skill set may not provide what is necessary to build, operate, and grow the organization in a way required to be successful. Effective leaders are visionary, focused, and create a culture of innovation: important attributes to be successful. Conversely, inexperienced or unqualified leadership can drive a nonprofit into trouble from the outset.

Many smaller nonprofits lack the knowledge or funding to integrate efficient technology solutions into internal workflows, fundraising, communications, and finance operations. As a result, they don’t have the time to focus on the initiatives that help them achieve meaningful progress. Further, those foundations focused on medical cures should include machine learning (AI) as a core element of their discovery process. Very few have this capability or are considering it, leading to a failure to optimize operations.

Inapt Strategies

Unfortunately, many smaller nonprofits have not taken the time to develop a mission statement, or they’ve drafted amission that is not audacious or measurable. One of the primary issues facing nonprofits is the lack of clear challenging goals and measurable outcomes. Without well-defined objectives, organizations often find themselves adrift, unable to demonstrate tangible results to their stakeholders. Additionally, an overemphasis on fundraising can divert attention from the core mission, turning nonprofits into entities more focused on sustaining themselves than effecting change.

Further, there is prevalent absence of collaboration and partnerships. All nonprofits should collaborate and build meaningful partnerships that place the goal ahead of the institution’s drive for recognition. This is as true for the 3% of the largest nonprofits as it is for the 97% that are minimally funded. No matter the size, it should be a strategic imperative for nonprofits. Sadly, it is not. For smaller nonprofits, they become burdened with excessive overhead and have zero influence. While the founders and supporters feel good about what they advocate, they achieve little.

As a result of operating shortfalls and inapt strategies, combined with the larger nonprofits dominating the nonprofit community, half of the smaller nonprofits fail, and those that survive have minimal impact, if any.

Why Bridge To A Cure Has Flourished

The progress highlighted in our  2022 annual report  took many by surprise; we welcomed the accolades. Accompanying the accolades were often followed with the same question: Given Bridge To A Cure’s modest revenue stream, how has it been able to help propel advancements in pediatric cancer, specifically childhood brain tumor cancer? Or how is it that the Bridge to a Cure Foundation is dramatically overperforming versus the status quo?

Simply, Bridge To A Cure excels at each of the operational and strategic imperatives identified above.

Operational Excellence

Bridge To A Cure Foundation has been built by qualified personnel: seasoned leadership, board of directors members, and advisors from industry and childhood cancer research with a track record of success. Bridge To A Cure executives apply years of experience competing, developing strategic advantages, optimizing resources, creating cultures of innovation, building strategic partnerships, responding quickly to challenges and opportunities.

Robust technology also is crucial to Bridge To A Cure success. We use multiple cloud-based applications to manage what is “backroom” operations: finances, fundraising, communications, and market research. This allows us to focus on building partnerships that will advance our mission and influence key decision-makers to drive the change needed to transform the childhood cancer community’s approach to research.

Effective Strategies

Our mission inspires us emotionally and creatively, it serves as a guideline for collaborating and partnering with like-minded organizations and targeting the right audience for support. Our strategies rely on strong strategic partnerships, with the goal of getting the right data and the right technology in the right hands. And, we are focused, we will cure childhood brain tumor cancer.

We have a mission that is audacious and measurable: To unite and transform the childhood cancer community’s approach to research with the goal of cutting childhood cancer death rate 50% by 2030.

Collaboration and strategic partnerships have been strategic imperatives since the begging. Today, we collaborate with over 20 other childhood brain tumor cancer nonprofits and several of the largest nonprofit institutions, including a partnership with the largest childhood brain tumor organization in the world. We have attracted board of director members and board of advisors that are leaders in industry and childhood cancer research. We have the loyal support of 400 donors and over 2,000 followers that are champions of our mission and appreciative our progress.

In our determination to end childhood cancer, Bridge To A Cure Foundation, in collaboration with its partners, has made remarkable advancements this past year. Through a multifaceted approach that emphasizes collaboration, open science, and the application of groundbreaking technologies, the foundation has brought together well-positioned individuals, forged vital partnerships, harnessed the power of data-driven research, and achieved transformative breakthroughs. These accomplishments have improved patient care and treatment outcomes and propelled advancements in the broader healthcare research field.

Exponential Impact in 2023

While a $250,000 foundation might seem modest, Bridge To A Cure has exponentially multiplied our impact in 2023 by targeting research and nonprofit organizations that share our mission and have the scientific resources and government influence to achieve it. And, we contributed strategic planning and communication skills found at senior executive levels within the business community. Over the past few years, these targeted organizations have come to rely on us to play this role. In doing so, Bridge To A Cure has become a crucial player in the childhood cancer research landscape, facilitating progress far beyond its financial size.

Empowering Key Individuals

The foundation supported our former executive director, Wendy Payton, as she transitioned to an executive role at the Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN). Bridge To A Cure Foundation plays an active role at CBTN as an Executive Council member. In addition, Foundation president Robert Martin sits on its Executive Committee. Wendy’s transition to CBTN further enhances the foundation’s impact of bringing its vision and strategic objectives to a wider audience within the CBTN, fostering collaboration and pushing for progress. Wendy continues her involvement with Bridge To A Cure as a member of our board of directors.

In addition, we welcomed new board member Nan Smith, who contributes valued perspectives from her expertise as a cancer patient advocate and research patron. Smith brings fundraising acumen built over 30 years of philanthropic projects, including the Hackers for Hope charity golf tournament, which raised over $20 million for cancer research programs. Her experience includes leadership positions at innovative nonprofit organizations Americares and Changing Our World. The addition of Nan to the board amplifies the caliber and expertise inherent within Bridge To A Cure Foundation leadership.

Strengthening Partnerships

CBTN expanded our reach in 2023 by welcoming two new pediatric healthcare member institutions, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, part of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network. And, CBTN is working to align with six additional institutions in the onboarding stage of membership. This exponential growth signifies the increasing recognition of the collaborative model and the trust bestowed upon CBTN to drive this strategy.

This year we marked the milestone of 5,000 child patient enrollees into CBTN, accompanied by the additional participation of now over 2,500 family members. Such levels of engagement have fortified the CBTN with an extensive dataset crucial for researchers across the globe. We do not celebrate this achievement because it means we have not yet accomplished our mission. But we honor these courageous children and families for their belief that what we are all doing together will help us end childhood cancer once and for all. Through this collective effort, Bridge To A Cure is helping to revolutionize childhood cancer research and providing researchers with the tools they need to advance progress.

Additionally, a significant milestone was achieved through a partnership forged between CBTN and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to drive AI innovation in patient care. Leveraging AWS’s cutting-edge technologies, the world’s largest data repository of its kind at CBTN, this powerful collaboration is working to develop individualized treatment protocols for doctors and their patients while empowering scientists and researchers worldwide with new cloud-based tools for data-driven discovery.

Harnessing Technological Expertise

Recognizing the potential of cloud-based computing and artificial intelligence (AI), the experts within the CBTN network have applied these technologies to not only drive childhood cancer research but also revolutionize broader healthcare research. By leveraging the power of AI and cloud computing, researchers are unlocking new insights into disease mechanisms, genetic variations, and potential treatment pathways. This interdisciplinary synergy is poised to deliver transformative outcomes in the quest for cures.

Influential Voices in Research

CBTN’s Co-Executive Director, Dr. Adam Resnick, has emerged as a prominent figure in data-driven bioscience discovery. He regularly makes appearances at patient advocacy and scientific conferences, including participation in the White House Cancer Moonshot gathering this past fall. His colleague Dr. Allison Heath, CBTN Director of Data Technology and Innovation, and others from CBTN also led engaging and thought-provoking presentations within the scientific research community this past year. This included participation in a prominent panel discussion at the AWS Summit in Washington, D.C. in September, where she joined leaders from AWS, the NIH National Cancer Institute, and the White House Cancer Moonshot. These discussions gained significant traction around the topics of how cloud-based open science research models are eliminating silos and allowing scientists across the globe to analyze – in real-time – medical records and other data to accelerate research and aid in the development of new therapies.

Transformational Research Progress

Significant progress has been made through transformative research initiatives in various domains. Notably, an imaging study utilizing AI has provided three-dimensional tumor images, aiding in the detection of tumor changes faster than traditional radiology methods alone. This breakthrough expedites diagnosis and treatment decisions, resulting in improved patient outcomes as timely and accurate interventions become possible. It signifies a pivotal step towards personalized, effective treatments and realizing the foundation’s overarching goals. It’s just a glimpse of what is possible through AI technology and open science.

In its collaborative efforts, Bridge To A Cure Foundation has delivered remarkable achievements in 2023, vastly outperforming what many thought possible for a smaller foundation such as ours. The alignment of key individuals, strengthening partnerships, technological advancements, amplification of influential voices, and transformational research breakthroughs reflect the foundation’s unwavering commitment to driving cures for children with cancer as we move forward into 2024.

And just as Bridge To A Cure could not make these advancements alone, neither could we continue to operate without the giving and advocacy of our friends and donors. It takes all of us doing our part, and we are so grateful for your support and encouragement over the past 6 years. Through the application of cutting-edge technologies and the global collaboration facilitated by Bridge To A Cure Foundation initiatives and upheld by you, hope shines brighter than ever for the future of childhood cancer research and beyond.

Through cooperation, Bridge To A Cure aims to cut the childhood cancer death rate 50% by 2030.

When Bridge To A Cure founder Bob Martin’s granddaughter Clara was diagnosed with brain cancer, Martin and dozens of healthcare professionals worked tirelessly to find effective treatments in an effort to save Clara. But, sadly, Clara passed on October 8, 2017 at just six years old. Inspired by her courage and positive spirit, Bridge To A Cure Foundation was established to find cures for pediatric brain tumors so that other children with cancer didn’t have to suffer the way she did. Because, for thousands of families like Bob’s who are facing a childhood brain tumor diagnosis, the journey is horrific and the results can be devastating.

Our Mission

To unite and transform the childhood cancer community’s approach to research with the goal of cutting the childhood cancer death rate by 50% by 2030.

Bridge To A Cure has been able to advance this mission by focusing on these key strategic initiatives:

• Focus on Brain Tumors. If brain tumors are cured, childhood cancer deaths are reduced by more than 50%.
• Data Collection, Processing, and Dissemination. By providing researchers access to a large enough database, we can accelerate breakthroughs and improve individualized treatment plans.
• Build Influence. As the foundation’s network of allies grows, so too does collaboration. This drives additional funding and federal legislation support.

The Bridge To A Cure Foundation 2021 annual report covers this progress in more detail. These initiatives have been implemented so successfully through the foundation’s staff, directors, and advisors, its network of allies, and individual supporters. But, there is much more that needs to be done. It’s time to move to the next phase of the Bridge To A Cure action plan—tapping into the foundation’s closely aligned network to strengthen databases and optimize resources, while also continuing to build collaborative efforts nationwide and beyond.

Introducing Children’s Brain Tumor Network… again!

And, the timing couldn’t be better. September is designated to drive Childhood Cancer Awareness, and earlier this month, Bridge To A Cure Foundation announced a new, collaborative effort with Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN). Moving forward, Bridge To A Cure will be integrating our time and talent into supporting this long-standing ally.

CBTN has been identified by the National Institute of Health (NIH) as the model for open science in data-driven discovery and Bridge To A Cure leaders fully believe that the cures for childhood brain tumors will be found using this collaborative data.

As CBTN begins delivering on Project Accelerate (the largest childhood brain tumor data release ever), this partnership makes sense now more than ever. The scope of this new data cannot be understated. With more than 8,000 new brain tumor samples being made available freely to scientists and researchers, the time for accelerated discovery is now. To this end, we have established the Bridge To A Cure-CBTN fund in memory of Clara. We will work hard to empower the work of CBTN and the more than 30 member research institutions globally that participate in their network.

Moving forward, Bridge To A Cure will continue its role on the CBTN Executive Council. And now, foundation president Robert Martin will sit on CBTN’s Executive Board to advise and formulate strategies that will continue to advance cures for children with brain tumors.

Continuing to Build Influence with St. Baldrick’s Foundation

St. Baldrick’s Foundation has been funding many CBTN member institution projects and is America’s largest private donor of childhood cancer research. Bridge To A Cure’s Martin is a member of their Board of Directors, where he continues to advocate for the funding of open science and data sharing in the pediatric cancer research realm. 

This partnership has led Bridge To A Cure Foundation to be in the position to:

• Amplify demand for legislative prioritization of childhood cancer cures
• Influence lawmakers to craft and support stronger bills that actually lead to meaningful progress

How You Can Help The Bridge To A Cure Coalition

You are invited to share in this celebration of progress with Bridge To A Cure Foundation. Please do continue with words of encouragement, resource sharing, and generous giving—which drives our work forward, as it has since 2017. One day, together, we will share in the victory that childhood brain tumors no longer are a devastating threat to children and their families.

And if you can help, please donate to help the Bridge To A Cure Foundation coalition here.

The Promise of Project Accelerate

Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) houses the largest childhood brain tumor biorepository in the world: 2,000 data sets for rare but deadly forms of pediatric brain tumors – of which there are more than 30 types and hundreds of subtypes.

Bridge To A Cure Foundation has partnered with CBTN to make more people aware that the more data available, the more breakthroughs will be made. And, we have some exciting news to share! Beginning in late September, researchers will be able to access 8,400 new data sets collected from 31 institutional sites worldwide and processed at the Broad Institute, a partnership between Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Project Accelerate researchers are focusing on the most aggressive types of childhood brain tumors, while also looking for discoveries for the rarest forms of the disease. CBTN will be making this flood of new information freely available to researchers all over the world, and the impact promises to be huge. Researchers will have access to so much more information to get one step closer to a cure for childhood brain tumors!

Childhood Brain Tumor Discovery

Discoveries in the area of brain tumors can’t be made by just one person. The Children’s Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) is a great resource for scientists since it is made up of 31 member institutions across the world that are working for the same goal: No child dies or suffers from a brain tumor. This network of researchers, clinicians, patients, and foundations are unified around this mission. They share data, resources, and expertise to make discoveries. Because of internet cloud storage, CBTN information can be easily accessed by researchers and scientists all over the world. This improves collaboration and takes away the barriers that were once a big part of the research.

The Role of the Young Investigator

Young investigators are essential in research, and they are the next generation of principal researchers. We need to make sure they feel supported and have access to the necessary help to guide them towards the cure of brain tumors. Bridge To A Cure Foundation believes that the secret to better treatments and cures for childhood brain tumors will be found in the CBTN data. By collaborating with young investigators and others who use this data, we can accelerate the pace of finding a cure.

A young investigator is someone who has just finished their Ph.D. degree and would like to work on a research project independently. They can also be young scientists who might have post-doctoral experience and want to explore a specific topic to learn more about it, or search for a discovery they are hoping to make.

The beauty of a young investigator is the drive and the desire to find out the answers to the questions they are passionate about. Research can be tedious and even discouraging. It is challenging, but if there is mentoring, collaborating, and talking to people who may disagree with the young investigator, the research can take an exciting turn and areas may open up that were never thought about before. In the end, this can lead to a new discovery that was never an option or thought previously.

The young investigator uses CBTN data in their own individual projects and this helps them get even closer to understanding how to treat childhood brain tumors brain tumors. Additionally, there are specimen data along with biosamples that can provide the young investigator with more of an understanding of a brain tumor subtype and possibly a breakthrough in treatment. Some of the data come from patient visits, MRI scans, data from stained slides of tissue, and genomic data. Since there is not enough data collected from any single research center, collaboration between many researchers is important. CBTN encourages young investigators and other researchers around the world to share their findings to help inform future research projects, no matter where that research is being conducted.

CBTN’s Project Accelerate will greatly advance the work of young investigators by flooding the new data into what is already the world’s largest repository of childhood brain tumor samples for pediatric cancer research projects. It is important to CBTN to make sure that the help is there for the critical research and development of more effective treatments for tumors of the brain and central nervous system.

Please give today to help fund Project Accelerate.

NOTE: Exciting announcement about Bridge To A Cure Foundation and the Children’s Brain Tumor Network to follow soon. Keep an eye out for news about an important development.

There’s never been a single drug developed for the number one killer of children. This must change now – Enough is Enough!

How is it possible that there hasn’t been one drug developed for the number one killer of children – brain tumors? It’s not because we don’t have the best minds dedicated to finding a cure – we do. No, it’s because these great minds don’t have access to the critical data essential to discovery. At Bridge To A Cure we are working to change that.

Here’s how. There are three components to make critical data available:

• Data collection
• Data storage
• Data access

In this month’s blog, we’ll address Data Collection. Bridge To A Cure is working to establish what data needs to be collected and in what format. The Pediatric Cancer Data Commons (PCDC) is one of the most important organizations working toward Bridge To A Cure’s goal to build a robust database to help beat childhood cancer. Through this effort, we’re creating a data dictionary for childhood brain tumors so that the healthcare community uses a signal, unified vocabulary in recording data.

Creating a central database to serve as a one-stop shop for all childhood cancer researchers starts with developing uniform standards for data collection and labeling for participating researchers to follow.

We’re taking an important first step in creating a data dictionary for childhood brain and central nervous system tumors thanks to the expertise of Dr. Sam Volchenboum and the PCDC team at the University of Chicago. The dictionary is a detailed list of data fields with definitions and metadata details, such as data type, source, and units of measurement. These universal standards will:

• Ensure that researchers can query the data with reliable results.
• Speed up future data collection by enabling automated and secure data extraction from electronic health records.
• Allow researchers to combine and analyze data from multiple sources — even across oceans and language barriers.

The total cost to create the pediatric brain tumor dictionary is estimated at $540,257 over three years. PCDC estimates it will take this amount of time to reach the fundraising goal and complete this project.

What is a data commons?

A data commons is defined as a cloud-based infrastructure that includes storage for data and the computational resources and tools to analyze it. The research community can submit, request or download data and collect and analyze it on the commons infrastructure.

“By facilitating these tasks, the presence of a data commons relieves the need for the researcher to purchase and manage local storage, compute, or processing tools,” the American Society of Clinical Oncology notes.

Why a data dictionary is critical

We recently spoke with Dr. Samuel L. Volchenboum, pediatric oncologist and principal investigator at the Volchenboum Lab at the University of Chicago that hosts the PCDC, to learn more about the data dictionary. Dr. Volchenboum is also a co-principal investigator on the NCI’s Center for Cancer Data Harmonization (CCDH), which is developing the data model.

As we’ve noted, several organizations working toward creating the database that we believe is a key to curing childhood cancers and finding more humane and effective treatments. They include the National Cancer Institute’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI).

Volchenboum is advocating for the Pediatric Cancer Data Commons and the Center for Cancer Data Harmonization to work together closely. For instance, the harmonized data model CCDH is creating, with significant involvement of the UChicago team, will cover all types of cancer — both pediatric and adult. CCDI has also contracted with UChicago to integrate PCDC data dictionaries into the harmonized CCDH data model. This demonstrates the NCI’s “commitment to utilizing our data dictionaries for this national effort,” Volchenboum says.

Currently, data from children with central nervous system cancers is spread across several registries. Volchenboum and his UChicago teams are working with these registries, exploring ways to remove patient-identifying information from datasets so they can be imported into the data commons.

Developing a global data language

Developing a data dictionary is a time-consuming but critical step toward creating a data commons. According to Volchenboum, getting international consensus on data elements is a cornerstone of the childhood brain tumor dictionary project’s success.

“Prior to COVID, the PCDC team hosted international meetings where disease experts convened to debate and discuss every aspect of these data elements,” he said. “This work has transitioned to online meetings, but the format remains the same.”

Facilitated by the University of Chicago team, participants from countries around the world discuss each proposed data element. Once the dictionary is built, there will be an open comment period followed by a vote to adopt the dictionary.

“This entire process can take up to a year — sometimes more, depending on the complexity and size of the dictionary,” Volchenboum said.

After that, the PCDC team will work with the NCI’s terminology team to keep everything up to date so that the work can be propagated forward to future clinical trials.

“The ultimate goal of building the commons is to lower barriers to research, leading to new discoveries and better outcomes for children with cancer,” he says.

To hear from Bridge To A Cure Foundation Founder Bob Martin on our approach to accelerating brain tumor cure advancement, click here.

Conventional metrics for gauging nonprofits fall short; it’s time to reward them based on collaboration and getting the job done.

We are a generous society. We Americans donate an estimated $400 billion of our hard-earned money each year to more than 1.5 million nonprofits that employ more than 10% of our workforce. Seems good, but are we getting our money’s worth?

People often choose to support a particular nonprofit based on a personal connection. Or it may be a cause that captures their imagination and emotion. Rarely do they research whether or not a charity is worth investing in.

The decision-making criteria we apply for investing in nonprofits is not the same as the criteria we apply for investing our savings in a company. Yet we can learn a lot from the way investors evaluate corporations.

Evaluating the merit of investing in a specific charity is harder than evaluating a corporation due to lack of reliable agencies that can provide meaningful and actionable data. There are only a few agencies that rate nonprofits. The largest has 20 employees and 12 analysts. That translates to about 75,000 nonprofits for each analyst. As a result they rely on one data point — percent of overhead. Yet this overly simplistic measure fails as a meaningful metric for several reasons.

Nonprofits, like for-profit corporations, need to invest in people and technology to be effective. But nonprofits are also different and need to be rewarded accordingly.

For instance, shouldn’t they receive high marks for collaborating, rather than competing with other nonprofits, to get things done? What should be the criteria for assessing the merits of nonprofits?

At Bridge To A Cure Foundation, we have been researching what differentiates nonprofits that have been successful from those that have not. Among our findings, the most effective nonprofits:

• Identify the problem in a fact-based, clearly articulated, and compelling way.
• Have an audacious and clearly stated goal that is measurable and inspirational. Too often goals are written that are not measurable — “helping kids do better” is not a goal.
• Set a deadline. They declare a specific time horizon to achieve the goal and each milestone along the way. Too many nonprofits avoid timelines for fear of losing funding if they don’t deliver. Well, they should!
• Rely on sound strategy. They map out processes in a holistic and systematic way, identifying key players, bottlenecks, issues and opportunities. They track and report on milestones. When it comes to resources, they understand there is no substitute for allocating and dedicating the resources and talent required to deliver the goal. They don’t dilute their plans for fear that the investment required will be rejected.
• Collaborate. They don’t just look at what they are doing but at the collective impact of all the players/entities seeking the same goal. They come together with a common agenda to define the problem and create a shared vision to solve it. Too many nonprofits don’t work together. This not only dilutes progress, it forgoes opportunities for cost-savings.

Today, 86% of donors believe that low overhead defines good charities. Only 6% of donors want to know if their donation is making a difference.

These are the donors who take the time to understand the nonprofit’s goal, strategies and progress, and how they learn from failures and reach goals. Yet many nonprofits are not making the difference they could when it comes to addressing society’s longstanding problems. Consider:

• Poverty has been stuck at 11-15% since the 1970s.
• There are five million more kids living below the poverty level now than there were in the 1960s when LBJ launched the war on poverty.
• One in five Americans is functionally illiterate, and it’s been that way for 30 years.
• The suicide rate has increased almost 30 percent since the 1990s.
• About 16% of America’s children live in households below the poverty line; for kids age 3 and younger, it’s 21%.
• In the past 40 years only four cancer treatments have been developed specifically for children.

In our next blog we will apply this criteria to explain the flaws within the childhood cancer nonprofit community and our plan to correct them. In the interim, please know that when it comes to achieving an audacious and challenging goal like cutting the childhood cancer death rate 50% by 2030, we at Bridge To A Cure Foundation will keep pushing to challenge the status quo that has left too many children and families without hope. We are thankful for our supporters, and ask for your continued support in the year to come as we push for a more effective approach to childhood cancer research and funding.

This month, we acknowledge those committed to identifying and destroying the most horrific terrorist cells in America – cancer cells!

These terrorist cells kill more children than any other disease. If we are to destroy them, we will need to provide our healthcare professionals with the medical arsenal to fight the fiercest terrorists targeting our children.

Thanks to the insight and input collected by the Bridge to a Cure Foundation from over 120 childhood cancer researchers and practitioners, we now know what our medical professionals need to finally wipe out these terrorist cells that target our children:

• A robust and dynamic national childhood cancer database.
• Algorithms that optimize the full capability of artificial intelligence.
• A simplified, sensitized, and modernized clinical trial process.
• A methodology to evaluate/approve alternative medicines/treatments.
• Collaboration and alignment within and across institutions.
• Pharmaceutical companies motivated to invest in ending childhood cancer.

CHILDHOOD CANCER HEROES

There were many institutions and medical professionals involved in the identification and development of these remedies for which we are appreciative. Today, we would like to give special recognition to those whose counsel and support have made a significant contribution to Bridge to a Cure’s work to identify the armaments we need to win the war on childhood cancer:

• Dr. Darell Bigner – Duke Cancer Institute
• Dr. Saskia Biskup – Center for Genomics and Transcriptomics, Germany
• Dr. Melissa Bondy – MD Anderson Cancer Center
• Dr. Alberto Broniscer – University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
• Dr. Robert Darnell – The Rockefeller University
• Dr. Ira Dunkel – Memorial Sloan Kettering
• Dr. Henry Friedman – Neuro-oncologist, Duke Cancer Center
• Dr. James Garvin – NY Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center
• Dr. Todd Golub – The Broad Institute
• Dr. Dirk Hadaschik – CeGat Germany
• John Kelly III – Senior Vice President, IBM
• Dr. Robert Kerbel – Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto
• Dr. Mark Kieran – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Rebecca Lambert – NED Biosystems
• Dr. John Letterio – University Hospital Cleveland
• Dr. Duane Mitchell – University of Florida
• Dr. Filiberto Munoz – San Diego Clinic, Mexico
• Dr. Jeremy Rich – Cleveland Clinic
• Dr. Ned Sharpless – Director, National Cancer Institute
• Dr. Linda Van Aelst – Cold Spring Harbor Labs
• Dr. William Weiss – University of California, San Francisco
• Dr. Ben Williams – Anti-Cancer Alliance

We especially want to give recognition to the institutions and individuals that have advanced the effort to develop the arsenal needed to destroy childhood cancer cells. These are the ones who want to change the status quo — the ones who realize that we cannot continue to repeat what has not worked and who feel the urgency to implement a better approach to childhood cancer research.

IBM’s Watson computer system uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aid cancer research.

KEY INITIATIVES

• A robust and dynamic national childhood cancer database — The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) aims to make it easier for researchers to learn from each of the approximately 16,000 children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer in the US each year. CCDI is the beginning of realizing Bridge to A Cure’s top objective: creating a robust national database that contains everything we know about childhood cancers. CCDI aims to maximize every opportunity to improve treatments and outcomes for children with cancer; build a connected data infrastructure to enable sharing of childhood cancer data from multiple sources; identify opportunities to make data work better for patients, clinicians, and researchers; and develop and enhance tools and methods to extract knowledge from data.

• Algorithms that optimize the full capability of artificial intelligence — We are beginning to see AI used to guide cancer management, with the most prominent example being IBM’s Watson for Oncology (WFO). Each month Watson ingests about 10,000 new scientific articles and data on 100 new clinical trials to keep up-to-date on new findings. While some point to the system’s limitations, it is important to keep in mind how new the technology is, and to recognize those who are adapting it to the real world fight against cancer. Other childhood cancer institutions experimenting with the potential of AI include: Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Pediatric Molecular Imaging Program and the Department of Pediatrics, Hematology/Oncology Section, both at Stanford University School of Medicine; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; the Department of Pediatrics, UNC School of Medicine; and the Sherry and John Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health at Duke University.

• A simplified, sensitized, and modernized clinical trial process — Organizations such as The New York Genome Center are using state-of-the-art genomic technologies and collaborating with leading research institutions to investigate the origins, diagnosis, and evolution of cancer. This includes working with The Broad Institute to simulate pediatric tumors in the laboratory to the map the capacity of tumors to develop resistance to drugs and drug combinations.

• A methodology to evaluate/approve alternative medicines/treatments — Opposition to alternative treatments is one of the barriers we’re working to remove in the fight against pediatric cancer. Some efforts worthy of recognition include research studies in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) to reduce symptoms and improve well-being for children with cancer. While most of these have been limited to single institutions, publications such as The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine are providing peer-reviewed studies to evaluate and integrate of CAM into mainstream medical practice. Medical marijuana is another promising area. Research by Yale Cancer Center showed a majority of pediatric cancer providers endorse its potential use for children with advanced cancer, although clinicians want to see much stronger clinical evidence that marijuana treatments can help relieve symptoms such as nausea and pain.

• Collaboration and alignment within and across institutions — We see increasing recognition of our goal of increasing collaboration among groups such as Stand Up To Cancer. SU2C funds “multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborative research projects that address critical problems in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to deliver near-term patient benefit.”

• Motivating pharmaceutical companies to invest in ending childhood cancer — As millennials become the dominant force in corporate culture, they demand companies work to improve the common good and not just the bottom line. Impact investing is one way to achieve both financial and social returns. Although impact investing is a relatively new strategy, its global market size is estimated to be $228 billion and growing, with 75% of investments generated from private investing strategies. Last year the CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $6 trillion in investments, called on CEOs of the world’s largest public companies to not just deliver profits but to fulfill their responsibility to make “a positive contribution to society.” The time is right to capitalize on the movement to value companies for their contributions to improving the human condition in addition to sustainable profit growth.

These are just a few of the innovations we want to highlight for International Children’s Cancer Day, which took place on February 15th. There are many others. As we raise awareness of the children battling cancer, we must focus and accelerate the momentum toward achieving the breakthroughs kids and their families so desperately need.

In closing, we want to dedicate International Childhood Cancer Day to all the childhood cancer researchers and child oncologist professionals for their dedication, caring, and drive to make a difference. Their commitment to saving children is a challenge both intellectually and emotionally. These dedicated professionals are motivated by the desire to save lives and to stop the diseases that remain the most common cause of death among children in America.