The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Foundation is now The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund

July 30, 2010 - PRLog -- In the fall of 2007, The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Foundation was created in honor of Joan to raise awareness of the disease, to educate the public, and to be an advocate for research.

Over the last three years, we have learned a great deal about lung cancer advocacy and have been honored to support several organizations that are doing great work.  We are extremely grateful to all of our supporters who have donated to our cause.  It is because of your generosity that we have been able to raise awareness and to fund research initiatives.

While we have funded several excellent organizations and research initiatives during our first three years, our board of directors has decided that we can do the most good for the cause by focusing on one research initiative.  Rather than spreading our financial commitments across various lung cancer projects, channeling our funds to one specific initiative will enable your precious donations to go much further.

During our time as a foundation, we have been extremely fortunate to forge a close relationship with The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (BJALCF).  Two years after BJALCF began, the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute (ALCMI) was created.  It is an international, virtual lung cancer institute dedicated to accelerating the discovery, development, and delivery of new and more efficient treatment options for lung cancer patients.  ALCMI connects the top thought leaders, scientists, researchers, and physicians institutions around the United States and the world.  It engages community hospitals to lead and empower patients toward better treatment options.  ALCMI only considers immediate, results-oriented projects or programs promising to catalyze progress through early detection, genetic testing, drug discovery and patient-focused outcomes.

The Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute began in San Francisco.   It was there that leading physicians, clinicians, scientists, researchers, representatives from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, venture capitalists, international investors, and lung cancer survivors convened at the University of California Mission Bay Conference Center.

They met for one purpose – to answer the following question:

“If money for research and development was not a barrier, and a true collaboration could be achieved, what would you do to reach a cure for lung cancer in the least amount of time and how much would it cost?”

The unanimous answer:

“We need a national lung cancer institute – an honest third-party broker – with a virtual specimen repository connecting existing biobanks and researchers world wide through a unique, real-time IT platform and better means of collaboration.”

The goal of ALCMI is to significantly improve lung cancer patient outcomes and survival.  ALCMI accomplishes this by directly facilitating scientific efforts to better characterize this complex and virtually fatal disease and thus accelerate the development of new, targeted therapies that will lead to treatments tailored to the individual lung cancer patient.  To this end, ALCMI works with its partners and supporters to establish a centralized, high-quality tissue/data bank, with investigators subsequently utilizing the resultant findings in ALCMI clinical trials to screen and enrich for patients who have the best chance to positively respond to the study drugs.

“There has been little to no movement in the survival rate of lung cancer in the last half century. Everyone will tell you I’m the ultimate optimist,” says board member Dr. David Jablons of UCSF, “But I really do think that in some finite period in our lifetime, especially now with ALCMI, we will see lung cancer, if not completely eradicated, dramatically changed in its onerousness and its impact on life.”

In 2009, thanks to support from our donors, we were very happy to make a donation of $15,000 to ALCMI.  Today, The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Foundation has become The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund and is excited to announce our formal partnership with the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute.  85% of the net proceeds that we raise with our lung cancer fund (primarily our annual Dancing for Joan gala) will now be used to support the excellent work ALCMI is doing.  Remaining funds will be used in metro Atlanta for an annual awareness campaign and to sponsor a lung cancer support group.

View an exciting and informative video about ALCMI:  http://jglcf.org/ALCMIVideo.aspx

We sincerely thank everyone who has made generous donations to our cause and urge you to spread the word and to continue your generosity.

If you have any questions at all regarding our new partnership, please do not hesitate to call us at (404) 987-0792 or e-mail us at gaetafund@gmail.com.

A Note to Our Donors:  We remain a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization and retain the same Tax ID #.  Donations that have been made to The Joan Gaeta Lung Caner Foundation remain tax-deductible.  If you have made a donation in 2010 (including ticket purchases for Dancing for Joan) and have not received a tax receipt from us, you can request one by sending an e-mail to gaetafund@gmail.com. Thanks again for your continued support.

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About The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund

The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund was created in the fall of 2007 as The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Foundation by her husband and children to raise awareness of the disease, to educate the public, and to be an advocate for research.

In July of 2010, we re-established ourselves as the The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund benefiting the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute (ALCMI). Our ultimate goal remains the same: to eradicate lung cancer.

A life long non-smoker, Joan was a devoted wife, teacher, and mother of five. Diagnosed in early 2004, she fought a three and a half year battle before succumbing to the cancer in July of 2007.

During that time, Joan stressed the need for greater awareness of lung cancer (the number one cancer killer in the world), its low survival rate, and its tragic lack of research funds. She was most passionate about eliminating the stigma of the disease, since lung cancer also strikes non-smokers at a high rate.