Vision
To live in a world where pediatric brain tumors do not define a child’s life.
To live in a world where pediatric brain tumors do not define a child’s life.
To eradicate pediatric brain tumors by supporting the world’s most promising, collaborative research.
The Kortney Rose Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds to support cutting-edge research into the causes and treatment of pediatric brain tumors.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), a federal agency under the National Institutes of Health (NIH) umbrella, allocates less than four percent of its annual $5 billion budget ($178 million) to all forms of pediatric cancer. In 2017, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, authorizing $1.8 billion in funding for the Cancer Moonshot initiative over seven years. Before 2017, the nation’s investment in overall cancer research experienced a prolonged hiatus in significant financial growth. Despite the opportunity for new funding through Cancer Moonshot, the increased cost of research and the constant dollar loss of funding due to inflation continues to impact the NCI budget and subsequently, the pace of investment in all cancer research. (NCI Office of Budget and Finance, cancer.gov, 2018)
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies fund only a fraction of a percent of childhood cancer research. They see little financial incentive for investment in such a small patient population. Since 1980, fewer than ten drugs have been developed for use in children with cancer, only four of which have been approved for use. (National Pediatric Cancer Foundation)
Small foundations like the Kortney Rose Foundation (KRF) are left to bridge this substantial funding gap.
“CAVATICA helps to bring together pediatric brain cancer genomic data from many different sources in an accessible, easy to use platform so that researchers can nimbly answer specific genomic questions as new hypotheses arise in their work. It’s like putting all of the trees in one place so that one can now see the forest.”
Michelle Monje Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology, and by courtesy, Neurosurgery, Pathology and Pediatrics, Stanford University