Winter 2024
By Nichole Bernier
Photography by Sam Ogden
When Marielle Kaifer lost her mother to lung adenocarcinoma, she wanted a way to honor her mother’s struggle while supporting research to identify early markers of the non-small cell lung cancer so prevalent in her family.
As chemists and researchers themselves, Marielle and her husband, Angel Kaifer, appreciated the importance of seed funding for groundbreaking research. So in 2019, they made a $1 million gift to establish the Barbara Wilson Gomez Endowed Fellowship in Thoracic Oncology at Dana-Farber in the lab of Pasi Jänne, MD, PhD, who was then director of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology and is currently director of the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science and of the Chen-Huang Center for EGFR-Mutant Lung Cancers, and the David M. Livingston, MD, Chair at Dana-Farber.
“The quality of communication inspires confidence. You feel involved in what they’re doing, and their progress, and feel your effort is having an effect.”
Marielle Kaifer
Then in 2022 came Angel’s own diagnosis, and with it, their commitment to another cancer in need of better treatment options.
“He had a rarer form of urothelial cancer, in the upper tract of the kidney, and then a very rare pattern of metastasis directly to bone,” said Marielle. “I was struck by how few treatment options were available. And I was very struck by the fact that there seemed to be so many tests coming out for early cancer detection, but not much for urothelial cancer.”
When Angel began treatment at Dana-Farber, he and Marielle were impressed by the work of Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, director of the Bladder Cancer Center. They recognized another need and opportunity, and launched The Kaifer Family Bladder Cancer Research Fund with a $1.3 million gift to support Bellmunt’s work.
Angel and Marielle’s hope for their funding is that research would enable urothelial cancer patients to be diagnosed sooner than stage II, before there is any substantial metastasis. “They’re looking at detection of cancer through blood analysis, which we think would be a game changer for this type of cancer, because it would facilitate early detection and probably much better outcomes,” said Angel.
“With this funding, my team and I are well-positioned to continue our work in developing a new, non-invasive blood test based on epigenomics, to detect and monitor bladder cancer in patients receiving new treatment options for bladder cancer like immunotherapy and antibody drug conjugates,” said Bellmunt. “I am grateful to Angel and Marielle for their support of this work, which we are hopeful will improve early detection and treatment monitoring.”
In some past donations to medical institutions, Marielle and Angel haven’t always felt well-connected to the projects they were funding. Working with Dana-Farber, they say, has been an entirely different experience because of the open flow of information on achievements made possible by their gifts.
“The quality of communication inspires confidence,” Marielle said. “You feel involved in what they’re doing, and their progress, and feel your effort is having an effect.”