We are at a turning point in the battle against cancer, and doctors are genuinely excited about a new generation of anti-cancer drugs, socalled targeted cancer therapies, which hold great promise for helping patients in ways never before possible. Targeted cancer therapies are anti-cancer drugs that home in on the molecular characteristics of cancer cells, leaving healthy tissue that is often damaged by standard treatments like radiation and chemotherapy, relatively unharmed.

For too long, the best medicine has had to offer cancer patients involved toxic radiation and chemotherapies that often cause harm to the entire body. Because targeted therapies have the potential to target cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, there is great hope among oncologists that this still-new approach will yield many more effective options for physicians treating cancer—options which present patients and their doctors with fewer side effects that must be dealt with in treatment.

With the support of generous donors, NFCR supports basic cancer research that will help scientists better understand cancer cells at the molecular level and find the keys to cancer causation and metastasis. NFCR’s long-term support of this type of research has already led to many advances in the field, and has fueled major scientific breakthroughs that are key to producing new, targeted treatments for cancer patients.

NFCR accelerates the pace of cancer research by recognizing innovative ideas while they are still in their infancy and providing scientists with the initial funding to substantiate those ideas. Th rough their groundbreaking work at the molecular and genetic levels, NFCR scientists are leading the way in some of the newest and most promising research fields, including chemoprevention, nanotechnology, molecular profiling, genetic mapping, angiogenesis, and antibody therapies, as well as the development of new targeted therapeutics.

At NFCR we know that research takes time. For this reason NFCR is committed to supporting scientists who are at the cutting edge of basic cancer research. If we can all agree that basic science is essential to new drug development, then we can agree that the more we understand about the mechanisms by which cancer grows and multiplies, the closer we will be to conquering it.

We are more convinced than ever that by funding innovative laboratory research we will achieve our goal of delivering cures for all types of cancer to patients worldwide. NFCR is about Research for a Cure. It’s about saving lives.