Monday Motivation

First, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We spent the holiday with my family in Upstate New York and I squeezed in some wonderful runs, including my first snowy run (which was AWESOME). And yeah, I can't believe I grew up with all of that beauty surrounding me and took it for granted! It was so stunningly peaceful and quiet, and I loved every second. 

 

Over the river and through the woods, on a six mile run I go...

And now suddenly it is December 1st! What??? Which means two things:

1. Our "official" marathon training begins two weeks from today! Woohoo!
2. It is Monday...so it's time for some motivation! 

As you know, 100% of the funds raised by the DFMC benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. As such, I am continuing to share some of the impact these vital projects have had, because nothing is more motivating than learning how your generous gifts help push us towards the ultimate finish line: a world without cancer.  

Today, I would like to highlight the work of  Dr. Martin Sattler on DNA Pathways and Drug Resistance in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a slowly progressing form of leukemia in which too many white blood cells are made in the bone marrow and accumulate in the blood. Although bone marrow transplant is the only known curative therapy for CML, the revolutionary drug Gleevec, developed in collaboration with DFCI investigators, has shown remarkable results in some patients. However, those who do respond to Gleevec often develop resistance to the drug, which leads to disease progression. Thus, there is a need to develop new, targeted therapies against CML to combat resistance. Martin Sattler, PhD, and his team are studying he underlying DNA damage and DNA repair mechanisms in CML cells. This basic science is essential to understand these altered DNA repair pathways and their role in drug-resistance. Dr. Sattler’s findings will potentially fuel the development of drugs that inhibit these processes and prevent or delay drug resistance. Additionally, this research is likely to be relevant to other cancers that are driven by similar genomic instability. 

Wow. Pretty awesome stuff.  

And the below?  Well that pretty much sums up why I am doing this challenge.  

Disclaimer: Someone remind me to read this post in a few weeks when it is twenty degrees cooler and the snow has turned turned to slushy muck rendering it slightly less blissful than my fist snowy run. Deal? Thanks.  Until then, lacing 'em up and loving winter running.