Foundation Leadership and Scientific Advisors

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

For our past research grants, the Jake Wetchler Foundation Scientific Advisory Board consisted 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/hemann and you can read more about his research at http://ki.mit.edu/people/faculty/hemann.
• Emily Greengard, MD. Dr. Greengard 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 is a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician at Boston Children's Hospital, and a Principal Investigator in the pediatric oncology program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. 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://stegmaierlab.dfci.harvard.edu/  .

We  also established relationships with four major foundations who recommended projects for our review: the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Life Sciences Research Foundation, and the American Society of Hematology. We have benefited from the ability of these four 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. Their recommendations were reviewed by our own Scientific Advisory Board for breakthrough potential and for impact towards life-saving treatments for children.