Mighty Micah
September 11, 2020
Beaming Benjamin
September 14, 2020When the pandemic hit, our immediate focus turned to helping provide the childhood cancer community with solid information on what COVID-19 meant for children with cancer. It became immediately apparent that there would be a huge toll enacted on the work done across the world in laboratories focused on childhood cancer research. This meant that promising research projects ground to a halt this past spring. The reality of the situation and the gravity of the impact upon our fragile community was troubling.
While as an organization we struggled to do as much as we could for families facing increased anxiety over the concerns from the pandemic, the research community waited to be able to return to their laboratories. While we looked at our funded research portfolio, we assessed where the Max Cure Foundation could make the most immediate impact with our support. As researchers began envisioning the new normal of laboratory operations during a pandemic, we focused our research grant funding on helping scientists get back to the work at hand in the new normal.
Perhaps Elias Sayour, MD, Ph.D Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics, University of Florida Term Professor, Principal Investigator: RNA Engineering Laboratory, UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program, Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy, Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery, McKnight Brain Institute, one of our research grant recipients said it best, “[t]he discretionary funds provided to us from the Max Cure Foundation have been essential to our research operations. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has shuttered many research labs, discretionary funds allow labs to be nimbler and navigate new challenges like Covid-19 without sacrificing the important research taking place. These funds are a lifeforce for much of what we do and we are so grateful to the Max Cure Foundation for providing this critical source of support.”
The Max Cure Foundation is focused upon creating change and impact through our research funding in a way that is dedicated to providing support where it is most critically needed. In the face of this pandemic, we believed it was critically urgent to provide funds protect and keep researchers safe and ensure that the underlying science was able to move forward. Taking the steps to ensure that research efforts can continue and those conducting the science are safe puts the community one step closer to the road to better outcomes for children with cancer.
