{"entity":{"id":"marc-lustgarten","kind":"person","name":"Marc Lustgarten","aka":[],"tldr":"Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1998 at 51, he set up a foundation that awarded ten $100,000 grants in its first year and became the largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research; he died in 1999.","summary":"Marc Lustgarten (1947-1999), vice chairman of Cablevision, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1998 at the age of 51. The Foundation's own account records that pancreatic cancer was then considered an orphan disease with very little research money and virtually no long-term treatment options, and that in its first year the Foundation awarded ten $100,000 grants totalling $1 million. Before he died in 1999 his vision for the Lustgarten Foundation was, in its words, well underway, supported by Cablevision's founder Charles Dolan and chief executive James Dolan. The Foundation states that its support of pancreatic cancer research helped stimulate the National Cancer Institute to increase its own pancreatic cancer funding to more than $182.1 million in 2018. It funds early detection, organoid and immunotherapy research, much of it at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.","asOf":"2026-09-10","links":[{"label":"Lustgarten Foundation: the Lustgarten story","url":"https://lustgarten.org/leadership/story/"}],"tags":["hero","donor","patient"],"related":[],"cancers":["pancreatic"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["lustgarten-foundation","cold-spring-harbor"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-funding-allocation","b-rare-cancers","b-early-detection"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Cablevision executive whose pancreatic cancer diagnosis launched the Lustgarten Foundation","specialisms":["Pancreatic cancer research funding","Patient-founded foundations"],"profiles":[],"papers":[]},"route":"/people/marc-lustgarten/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"pancreatic","kind":"cancer","name":"Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma","route":"/cancers/pancreatic/"}],"institution":[{"id":"cold-spring-harbor","kind":"institution","name":"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory","route":"/institutions/cold-spring-harbor/"},{"id":"lustgarten-foundation","kind":"institution","name":"Lustgarten Foundation","route":"/institutions/lustgarten-foundation/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-funding-allocation","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Funding follows fashion, not burden","route":"/bottlenecks/b-funding-allocation/"},{"id":"b-rare-cancers","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Rare and paediatric cancers without markets","route":"/bottlenecks/b-rare-cancers/"},{"id":"b-early-detection","kind":"bottleneck","name":"The hardest cancers are found late","route":"/bottlenecks/b-early-detection/"}]}}