The Jake Wetchler Foundation’s leadership brings a wealth of business and technical expertise to all phases of the foundation’s operation.

Board of Trustees

Jean Singer, Ph.D.
President and Treasurer

Jonathan Wetchler, Esquire
Vice President

Denise Martini, PE
Secretary

Elizabeth Dominguez, MBA
Trustee

Scott Schecter, CPA, MBA
Trustee

Scientific Advisors

The Jake Wetchler Foundation’s grant-giving activities are guided by the advice of three top-notch scientists, all from prestigious cancer research institutions, and partnerships with two major foundations.

The Jake Wetchler Foundation Scientific Advisory Board consists of:

• Michael Hemann, PhD.  Dr. Hemann is a researcher at the MIT Koch Center for Integrative Cancer Research.  His laboratory uses leading-edge RNA interference technology to better understand why many human cancers fail to respond effectively to chemotherapy. He is featured on the Koch Center's website at http://ki.mit.edu/people/insidethelab/hemannand you can read more about his research at http://ki.mit.edu/people/faculty/hemann.

• Emily Lipsitz, MD.  Dr. Lipsitz was one of Jake’s oncologists at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and is now an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.  Her research focuses on utilizing novel agents for the treatment of children, particularly with respect to neuroblastoma and sarcomas.  You can read more about Dr. Lipsitz at http://www.med.umn.edu/peds/hemonc/faculty/emilylipsitz/home.html.

• Kimberly Stegmaier, MD.  Dr. Stegmaier works at the Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute and her research focuses on finding drugs for pediatric malignancies not well addressed by industry such as acute myeloid leukemia (which has particularly low survival rates and is the form of leukemia that Jake had.) You can read more about her research at http://www.childrenshospital.org/cfapps/research/data_admin/Site2250/mainpageS2250P0.html.

We have also established relationships with two major foundations, Alex's Lemonade Stand and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, who will recommend projects for our review.  We benefit from the ability of these two well-known and highly regarded organizations to cast a wide net attracting innovative researchers from across the country, and from the advice of their well-seasoned scientific advisory boards.  Alex's Lemonade Stand will recommend to us prospective projects that focus solely on pediatric cancers and Damon Runyon will recommend to us candidates that meet their stringent standards for innovation (which have funded 11 Nobel Laureates throughout the years; see http://www.damonrunyon.org/research_results/timeline_of_results.) 

Our partnerships provide the best of both worlds for identifying innovative projects in the field of pediatric cancer research, and from the resulting pipeline we will select grant recipients meeting our criteria for high risk/high reward research with the potential for breakthroughs in pediatric cancer treatment.