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Heroes and heroines
Cancer advances were carried by people. Patients who said yes to the first trial when nothing else had worked. Families who built funds from a lemonade stand, a radio broadcast, a marathon on one leg. Advocates who refused to be operated on without being asked. Scientists who kept going through decades of rejection. This page names some of them and links each to the drugs, trials and ideas their lives touched.
78 people26 patients2 carers and family12 advocates37 donors19 pioneersPublic record only. Each record carries the date it was last checked.
Patients and families
Ordinary people whose own illness, or a child's or a partner's, became a turning point: the first to take a new drug, the first to say so in public, the ones who turned a diagnosis into a fund or a campaign.
PatientSharon BelvinEarly complete responder to ipilimumab whose recovery Jim Allison called the moment he knewDiagnosed with metastatic melanoma at 22, she received the anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab in an early trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering and has been cancer-free since. Her meeting with James Allison in 2006 is part of immunotherapy's history.PatientBarbara BradfieldFirst long-term survivor of the trastuzumab trialsIn 1992 she was the first patient with recurrent HER2-positive breast cancer to be treated with the antibody that became Herceptin, in Dennis Slamon's trial at UCLA. She became its first long-term survivor.
PatientTerry FoxPatient whose Marathon of Hope built Canada's largest cancer research fundraiserAfter losing a leg to bone cancer at 18, he set out in 1980 to run across Canada for cancer research. He covered 5,373 km before the disease returned; the run he started has raised over C$850 million.
PatientKate GrangerDoctor and patient who started #hellomynameisA geriatrician with a rare sarcoma who noticed that the staff treating her did not introduce themselves. Her 2013 campaign, #hellomynameis, was adopted by hundreds of thousands of health workers.PatientEinar "Jimmy" GustafsonThe boy behind the Jimmy FundA 12-year-old lymphoma patient of Sidney Farber whose 1948 radio broadcast launched the Jimmy Fund, which has funded Dana-Farber for more than 75 years.
PatientKris HallengaFounder of CoppaFeel!, the first breast cancer charity aimed at young peopleDiagnosed with incurable breast cancer at 23 after her symptoms were dismissed, she founded CoppaFeel! in 2009 to teach young people to check their chests. She lived with the disease for fifteen years.
PatientDame Deborah James"Bowelbabe": patient, broadcaster and fundraiser for bowel cancer researchDiagnosed with bowel cancer at 35, she spent five years telling people to check their poo, co-hosted the BBC's You, Me and the Big C, and raised over £11 million for Cancer Research UK in the weeks before her death in 2022.PatientAshya KingChild whose family's fight for proton therapy changed access in BritainIn 2014 his parents took him from a British hospital to seek proton beam therapy for a brain tumour abroad, were arrested, then vindicated. The case sped the building of NHS proton centres.PatientRose KushnerJournalist who ended the one-step mastectomy and put patients in the roomDiagnosed in 1974, she refused the standard practice of biopsy and mastectomy under one anaesthetic without the patient's say. Her campaign made the two-step procedure and informed choice the norm.
PatientHenrietta LacksPatient whose cells became the HeLa line; the case that reshaped research consentHer cervical cancer cells, taken in 1951 without her knowledge, became HeLa, the first immortal human cell line. Her story changed how consent and family rights in research are handled.
PatientAudre LordePoet whose Cancer Journals reframed illness, prosthesis and silenceAfter a mastectomy in 1978 she wrote The Cancer Journals, refusing a prosthesis and the expectation that women hide their cancer. The book became a founding text of patient writing.
PatientRandy PauschProfessor whose Last Lecture became a public reckoning with terminal pancreatic cancerA computer scientist with terminal pancreatic cancer who gave a lecture in 2007 on achieving childhood dreams. Tens of millions watched it, and he testified to Congress for pancreatic cancer research funding before he died at 47.PatientBud RomineFirst patient in the imatinib (STI571) phase 1 trialA retired railway engineer from Oregon with chronic myeloid leukaemia, he was the first person to take the drug that became Gleevec, in June 1998, after reading about Brian Druker's research in a newspaper.PatientRobert SandlerChild whose remission on aminopterin in 1947 was the first in leukaemiaA two-year-old with acute leukaemia treated by Sidney Farber with the folate antagonist aminopterin from December 1947. His temporary remission, reported in 1948, was the first evidence that a drug could turn back leukaemia.PatientAlexandra "Alex" ScottChild with neuroblastoma who started Alex's Lemonade StandDiagnosed with neuroblastoma before her first birthday, she set up a lemonade stand at four to raise money for her hospital. By her death at eight in 2004 it had raised $1 million; the foundation in her name has raised hundreds of millions since.
PatientSid SijbrandijGitLab co-founder living with osteosarcoma; writes openly about treatment and workThe GitLab co-founder who kept working and writing in public through osteosarcoma treatment, showing what living with a rare bone cancer looks like from the inside.PatientStephen SuttonTeenage patient whose bucket list raised millions for young people with cancerDiagnosed with bowel cancer at 15, he turned his final years into a public campaign that raised more than £5 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust before he died at 19.PatientEmily WhiteheadPatient whose case launched CAR-T for childrenThe first child treated with CAR-T cells, in 2012. Her recovery from relapsed leukaemia turned an experimental idea into an approved therapy.
PatientTerry FoxPatient whose Marathon of Hope built Canada's largest cancer research fundraiserAfter losing a leg to bone cancer at 18, he set out in 1980 to run across Canada for cancer research. He covered 5,373 km before the disease returned; the run he started has raised over C$850 million.PatientKate GrangerDoctor and patient who started #hellomynameisA geriatrician with a rare sarcoma who noticed that the staff treating her did not introduce themselves. Her 2013 campaign, #hellomynameis, was adopted by hundreds of thousands of health workers.PatientEinar "Jimmy" GustafsonThe boy behind the Jimmy FundA 12-year-old lymphoma patient of Sidney Farber whose 1948 radio broadcast launched the Jimmy Fund, which has funded Dana-Farber for more than 75 years.PatientKris HallengaFounder of CoppaFeel!, the first breast cancer charity aimed at young peopleDiagnosed with incurable breast cancer at 23 after her symptoms were dismissed, she founded CoppaFeel! in 2009 to teach young people to check their chests. She lived with the disease for fifteen years.PatientDame Deborah James"Bowelbabe": patient, broadcaster and fundraiser for bowel cancer researchDiagnosed with bowel cancer at 35, she spent five years telling people to check their poo, co-hosted the BBC's You, Me and the Big C, and raised over £11 million for Cancer Research UK in the weeks before her death in 2022.PatientAshya KingChild whose family's fight for proton therapy changed access in BritainIn 2014 his parents took him from a British hospital to seek proton beam therapy for a brain tumour abroad, were arrested, then vindicated. The case sped the building of NHS proton centres.PatientRose KushnerJournalist who ended the one-step mastectomy and put patients in the roomDiagnosed in 1974, she refused the standard practice of biopsy and mastectomy under one anaesthetic without the patient's say. Her campaign made the two-step procedure and informed choice the norm.PatientHenrietta LacksPatient whose cells became the HeLa line; the case that reshaped research consentHer cervical cancer cells, taken in 1951 without her knowledge, became HeLa, the first immortal human cell line. Her story changed how consent and family rights in research are handled.PatientAudre LordePoet whose Cancer Journals reframed illness, prosthesis and silenceAfter a mastectomy in 1978 she wrote The Cancer Journals, refusing a prosthesis and the expectation that women hide their cancer. The book became a founding text of patient writing.PatientRandy PauschProfessor whose Last Lecture became a public reckoning with terminal pancreatic cancerA computer scientist with terminal pancreatic cancer who gave a lecture in 2007 on achieving childhood dreams. Tens of millions watched it, and he testified to Congress for pancreatic cancer research funding before he died at 47.PatientBud RomineFirst patient in the imatinib (STI571) phase 1 trialA retired railway engineer from Oregon with chronic myeloid leukaemia, he was the first person to take the drug that became Gleevec, in June 1998, after reading about Brian Druker's research in a newspaper.PatientRobert SandlerChild whose remission on aminopterin in 1947 was the first in leukaemiaA two-year-old with acute leukaemia treated by Sidney Farber with the folate antagonist aminopterin from December 1947. His temporary remission, reported in 1948, was the first evidence that a drug could turn back leukaemia.PatientAlexandra "Alex" ScottChild with neuroblastoma who started Alex's Lemonade StandDiagnosed with neuroblastoma before her first birthday, she set up a lemonade stand at four to raise money for her hospital. By her death at eight in 2004 it had raised $1 million; the foundation in her name has raised hundreds of millions since.PatientSid SijbrandijGitLab co-founder living with osteosarcoma; writes openly about treatment and workThe GitLab co-founder who kept working and writing in public through osteosarcoma treatment, showing what living with a rare bone cancer looks like from the inside.PatientStephen SuttonTeenage patient whose bucket list raised millions for young people with cancerDiagnosed with bowel cancer at 15, he turned his final years into a public campaign that raised more than £5 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust before he died at 19.PatientEmily WhiteheadPatient whose case launched CAR-T for childrenThe first child treated with CAR-T cells, in 2012. Her recovery from relapsed leukaemia turned an experimental idea into an approved therapy.Pioneers
Scientists and clinicians who saw something the field did not accept, and kept going until it did.
PioneerBrian DrukerPhysician-scientist who brought imatinib to patients with chronic myeloid leukaemiaHe pushed a shelved kinase inhibitor through the laboratory and into a 1998 trial when few believed a targeted pill could work. Imatinib made chronic myeloid leukaemia a disease people live with, and became the model for targeted therapy.
PioneerGertrude ElionChemist who designed 6-mercaptopurine and the first rational anticancer drugsWithout a doctorate, she and George Hitchings designed drugs to block DNA building blocks. Their 6-mercaptopurine of 1951 remains part of the cure for childhood leukaemia; she won the Nobel Prize in 1988.
PioneerSidney FarberPathologist who produced the first chemotherapy remissions in childhood leukaemia; father of modern chemotherapyIn 1947-48 he showed that the folate antagonist aminopterin could send childhood leukaemia into remission, the first drug ever to do so. He then built Dana-Farber and, with Mary Lasker, won the 1971 National Cancer Act.
PioneerBernard FisherSurgeon whose NSABP trials ended the radical mastectomy and established adjuvant therapyHe argued that breast cancer is a systemic disease from early on, then proved in randomised trials that lumpectomy with radiation equals mastectomy and that tamoxifen after surgery, and even before cancer, saves lives.PioneerJudah FolkmanSurgeon-scientist who proposed and proved that tumours depend on new blood vesselsIn 1971 he proposed that tumours cannot grow beyond a few millimetres without recruiting blood vessels, and that blocking them could treat cancer. Dismissed for decades, the idea produced bevacizumab and a class of drugs.
PioneerIan FrazerImmunologist who, with Jian Zhou, created the technology behind the HPV vaccineIn 1991 he and Jian Zhou made HPV virus-like particles in the laboratory, the basis of the vaccines that could eliminate cervical cancer. Australia, where the vaccine was rolled out first, is on course to do so.PioneerEmil J FreireichPioneer of combination chemotherapy and the cure of childhood leukaemiaAt the NCI in the early 1960s he and Emil Frei gave children four drugs at once, VAMP, against fierce opposition, and turned a leukaemia almost no child survived into a curable one. He also worked out platelet transfusion.
PioneerHarald zur HausenVirologist who showed that human papillomavirus causes cervical cancerAgainst the consensus that herpes was to blame, he proposed in 1976 that papillomaviruses cause cervical cancer and isolated HPV16 and HPV18 from tumours in 1983-84, making vaccination and HPV testing possible. Nobel Prize 2008.
PioneerJimmie HollandFounder of psycho-oncologyA psychiatrist who set up the first full-time psychiatry service in a cancer hospital at Memorial Sloan Kettering in 1977, founded the field's societies and journal, and made distress a vital sign in cancer care.
PioneerTasuku HonjoImmunologist who discovered PD-1 and opened the way to anti-PD-1 therapyHe discovered the PD-1 molecule on T cells in 1992 and showed it acts as a brake on immune attack. Blocking it produced nivolumab and pembrolizumab, now used across dozens of cancers; Nobel Prize 2018.
PioneerEmil "Tom" Frei IIIPioneer of combination chemotherapy; long-time physician-in-chief of Dana-FarberWith Emil Freireich he showed that combinations of drugs could cure childhood leukaemia, then extended the idea to Hodgkin lymphoma and to adjuvant treatment after surgery.PioneerMary-Claire KingGeneticist who proved inherited breast cancer exists and mapped BRCA1In 1990 she showed that a single gene on chromosome 17, BRCA1, causes inherited breast and ovarian cancer, when most of the field doubted such a gene existed. Genetic testing and risk-reducing care followed.
PioneerElisabeth Kübler-RossPsychiatrist who made the dying patient's experience a subject of medicineHer 1969 book On Death and Dying, based on interviews with terminally ill patients in a Chicago hospital, made it acceptable for doctors to talk with patients about dying and helped launch the American hospice movement.
PioneerDonald PinkelFirst director of St. Jude; devised Total Therapy for childhood leukaemiaAs the founding director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in 1962 he designed Total Therapy, combining drugs with treatment of the brain and spinal fluid, and raised childhood leukaemia cure rates from near zero to about half within a decade.
PioneerJanet RowleyGeneticist who showed that chromosomal translocations cause cancerWorking part-time at her dining-room table in 1972, she showed the Philadelphia chromosome in CML is a swap between chromosomes 9 and 22. Cancer had a genetic cause, and imatinib later hit the fused gene.
PioneerJane Cooke WrightPioneer of chemotherapy for solid tumours; co-founder of ASCOAt Harlem Hospital in the 1950s she showed methotrexate could shrink breast and skin cancers, tested drugs on patients' own tumour cells, and in 1964 was the only woman among the seven founders of ASCO.PioneerJian ZhouVirologist who co-invented the HPV virus-like particle vaccineA Chinese virologist whose skill in expressing viral proteins made the first HPV virus-like particles in 1991. He died in 1999 at 42, seven years before the vaccine reached the public.Advocates and builders
People who built the institutions, coalitions and movements that moved money, changed rules and put patients in the room.
AdvocateNancy BrinkerFounder of Susan G. KomenShe promised her dying sister, Susan Komen, that she would end breast cancer, and in 1982 founded the organisation that created the Race for the Cure and made breast cancer a mainstream cause.
AdvocateMary LaskerPhilanthropist and lobbyist behind the National Cancer Act of 1971She turned the American Cancer Society into a research funder in the 1940s, built the Lasker Awards, and led the lobbying that produced the 1971 National Cancer Act and the modern NCI budget.AdvocateEvelyn LauderCo-creator of the pink ribbon and founder of the Breast Cancer Research FoundationA breast cancer survivor and Estée Lauder executive who co-created the pink ribbon in 1992 and founded the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 1993, now one of the largest private funders of breast cancer research.
AdvocateSusan LoveBreast surgeon, author and founder of the Army of WomenHer Breast Book gave women the information to question their surgeons; she co-founded the National Breast Cancer Coalition and in 2008 recruited hundreds of thousands of women into research through the Army of Women.
AdvocateDame Cicely SaundersFounder of the modern hospice movementNurse, social worker and doctor who opened St Christopher's Hospice in 1967 and established that pain in advanced cancer could be prevented with regular oral morphine and attention to the whole person.AdvocateFran ViscoFounding president of the National Breast Cancer CoalitionA lawyer treated for breast cancer in 1987 who built the National Breast Cancer Coalition and won the Department of Defense breast cancer programme, the first to put trained patient advocates on scientific review panels.Donors and philanthropists
People who paid for the work, or raised the money for it: the founding gifts behind institutes and cancer centres, the foundations that back early ideas no agency will yet fund, and the fundraisers who turned a diagnosis into a research fund. Gift figures come from the recipient's own announcements. Their names are on the buildings; the work inside them is what changed.
DonorLeonard AbramsonU.S. Healthcare founder whose 1997 gift created Penn's Abramson Cancer CenterIn 1997 he and his wife Madlyn, a cancer survivor, gave the University of Pennsylvania the gift that created the Abramson Cancer Center, where CAR-T therapy was later developed.DonorMonroe Dunaway AndersonCotton merchant and banker whose foundation's bequest created MD Anderson Cancer CenterHe never saw the hospital: his foundation, left $19 million on his death in 1939, matched the State of Texas's $500,000 in 1941 on condition the new cancer hospital be built in Houston and carry his name.DonorDebra BlackMelanoma patient who co-founded the Melanoma Research AllianceHer 2007 melanoma diagnosis led her and her husband Leon to found the Melanoma Research Alliance, now the largest private funder of melanoma research.DonorLeon BlackCo-founder, with Debra Black, of the Melanoma Research AllianceAfter his wife Debra's melanoma diagnosis in 2007 the couple founded the Melanoma Research Alliance, which has put more than $200 million into research while they pay its running costs so every donated dollar goes to science.
DonorMichael BloombergJohns Hopkins' largest benefactor; co-founder of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer ImmunotherapyIn 2016 his $50 million, matched by Sidney Kimmel and others to $125 million, launched a Johns Hopkins institute that put more than a hundred scientists and clinicians to work on cancer immunotherapy.
DonorGert BoyleColumbia Sportswear chairwoman whose $100 million helped Oregon meet the Knight Cancer ChallengeIn 2014 the Columbia Sportswear chairwoman gave $100 million to OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute, the largest single contribution toward matching Phil and Penny Knight's $500 million challenge.
DonorEli BroadWith Edythe Broad, founder of the Broad Institute of MIT and HarvardEli and Edythe Broad gave $100 million in 2004 to start the Broad Institute and kept giving until their total passed $700 million in 2013; the genomics it produced underpins much of precision oncology.
DonorPriscilla ChanPaediatrician who, with Mark Zuckerberg, founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the CZ BiohubShe and Mark Zuckerberg founded the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub with the stated mission to cure or prevent all disease; its programmes include engineering the immune system to detect cancer and other diseases early.DonorHelen DillerNamesake of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center; the Diller family's UCSF giving reached $650 million by 2017The cancer centre at UCSF carries her name, and in 2017 the Helen Diller Foundation gave UCSF $500 million, the largest gift in its history, bringing the family's total there to $650 million.
DonorLarry EllisonOracle founder behind the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine and the Ellison Institute of TechnologyIn 2016 he founded an institute in Los Angeles to reimagine cancer care, and his Ellison Institute of Technology is building an Oxford campus with a £130 million alliance with the university.
DonorBill GatesCo-founder of the Gates Foundation, Gavi's founding partner and the largest private funder of HPV vaccine accessThe Gates Foundation has committed $4.1 billion to Gavi, the vaccine alliance it helped found in 2000, whose HPV programme had fully immunised nearly 60 million girls against cervical cancer by the end of 2024.
DonorJohn Jacob Astor IIIWith his wife Charlotte, among the founders of New York Cancer Hospital in 1884, now Memorial Sloan KetteringIn 1884 he and his wife Charlotte were among the group who founded New York Cancer Hospital, the institution that became Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
DonorMartha Rivers IngramBusinesswoman whose family's 1999 gift named Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in memory of E. Bronson IngramIn 1999 the Ingram family made what Vanderbilt calls a transformational gift in honour of the late E. Bronson Ingram; the centre took the family's name and became Tennessee's leading cancer research centre.DonorHerbert IrvingSysco co-founder whose family gave more than $900 million to Columbia, founding the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer CenterHerbert and Florence Irving's gifts to Columbia began with $8.5 million in 1987, founded its cancer centre in 1995 and ended with a $700 million bequest in 2017 for cancer research; the total passed $900 million.
DonorAlfred P. Sloan Jr.General Motors chairman who, with Charles Kettering, established the Sloan Kettering InstituteIn the 1940s the General Motors chairman joined engineer Charles Kettering to establish the Sloan Kettering Institute, dedicated in 1948, which gave Memorial Hospital a research arm and its modern name.
DonorJohn D. Rockefeller Jr.Donor of the York Avenue land on which Memorial Sloan Kettering standsIn 1936 he donated the land on York Avenue to which Memorial Hospital moved; Memorial Sloan Kettering has been there ever since.
DonorLi Ka-shingHong Kong entrepreneur whose foundation funded free hospice care for poor cancer patients and the building that houses the CRUK Cambridge InstituteSince 1980 he has put more than HK$30 billion into his foundation; its Heart of Gold programme gave free hospice care to tens of thousands of poor terminal cancer patients, and its gift built the Cambridge centre that houses Cancer Research UK's institute there.
DonorCharles F. KetteringInventor and General Motors research chief who co-founded the Sloan Kettering InstituteThe inventor of the electric car starter and head of General Motors research joined Alfred Sloan in the 1940s to establish the Sloan Kettering Institute for cancer research.DonorSidney KimmelFounder of the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research; namesake of the Johns Hopkins cancer centre and Jefferson's medical collegeThe Jones Apparel founder has given $157 million to Johns Hopkins since 2001, which named its cancer centre for him, and put $50 million into the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in 2016.
DonorPhil KnightNike co-founder whose gifts to OHSU Knight Cancer Institute total more than $2.6 billionPhil and Penny Knight gave OHSU $100 million in 2008, a $500 million challenge in 2013 that Oregon met within two years, and $2 billion in 2025, described by OHSU as the largest gift to a US university.
DonorDavid H. KochProstate cancer patient whose gifts built the MIT Koch Institute and the MSK Koch Center for Cancer CareTreated for prostate cancer from 1992, he gave MIT $100 million in 2007 to build an institute that puts engineers and cancer biologists under one roof, and MSK $150 million in 2015 for a new outpatient cancer building.
DonorAlbert LaskerAdvertising pioneer who co-founded the Lasker Foundation with Mary Lasker in 1942The man who invented modern advertising put his fortune and his methods behind medical research, founding the Lasker Foundation with his wife Mary in 1942; after his death in 1952 she carried the campaign for cancer research into law.DonorGoh Cheng LiangNippon Paint magnate whose Goh Foundation gave $50 million for Singapore's public proton therapy centreHis Goh Foundation's $50 million gift built the Goh Cheng Liang Proton Therapy Centre at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, the only public proton therapy service in the country.
DonorDaniel K. LudwigShipping magnate who endowed the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in 1971In 1971 he put nearly all of his international holdings into a cancer research institute that carries his name reluctantly; it has since spent more than $1.8 billion of its own money on cancer science.DonorAnn LurieNurse and philanthropist behind Northwestern's Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer CenterAfter her husband Robert was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer in 1987 at 46, she turned the family's fortune to Northwestern's cancer centre, which carries his name, and to the children's hospital that carries both.DonorMarc LustgartenCablevision executive whose pancreatic cancer diagnosis launched the Lustgarten FoundationDiagnosed 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.DonorLucille P. MarkeyCalumet Farm owner whose gifts founded the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer CenterIn the late 1970s the owner of Calumet Farm approved a $1 million gift, the first of many, and in 1983 the Lucille Parker Markey Cancer Center was founded in her name in Lexington.
DonorMichael MilkenProstate cancer patient who founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation in 1993Diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 1993, the financier founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation, whose grants helped pay for the science behind abiraterone and enzalutamide and built a network of precision oncology centres for US veterans.
DonorSean ParkerFounder of the Parker Institute for Cancer ImmunotherapyIn 2016 he founded and funded an institute that runs cancer immunotherapy research as one network across a dozen leading cancer centres, sharing data, samples and patents rather than competing for them.DonorRichard RogelDonor whose 2018 gift renamed the University of Michigan's cancer centre the Rogel Cancer CenterRichard and Susan Rogel's 2018 gift to the University of Michigan renamed its NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centre, founded in 1986, the Rogel Cancer Center.
DonorJon M. Huntsman Sr.Cancer survivor who founded and funded Huntsman Cancer InstituteA chemicals billionaire treated for cancer several times, he and his wife Karen founded Huntsman Cancer Institute in 1995 and their family gave more than $400 million to build its research institute and hospital.DonorBilly StarrFounder of the Pan-Mass Challenge, which has raised $1.125 billion for Dana-FarberAfter his mother died of melanoma he organised a bike ride across Massachusetts in 1980 with 36 riders; the Pan-Mass Challenge has since raised $1.125 billion for Dana-Farber and passes on every rider-raised dollar.
DonorRatan TataChairman of Tata Trusts, whose cancer care programme is building a network of 20 hospitals across seven Indian statesUnder his chairmanship Tata Trusts launched a cancer care programme in 2017 to bring affordable treatment closer to home: 20 hospitals across seven states and, with the Assam government, a three-level network of 19 cancer facilities across the north-east.
DonorSir Dorabji TataIndustrialist whose trust, endowed with his entire fortune, built the Tata Memorial Hospital in 1941After his wife Meherbai's illness and death in 1931 he founded the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in 1932 and left it everything he had; the Trust built Tata Memorial in 1941, called the first large contribution of India to the international fight against cancer.
DonorSanford I. WeillBanker whose $100 million matching grant launched the Weill Cancer Hub West at UCSF and StanfordIn May 2025 the Weill Family Foundation's $100 million challenge launched a $200 million, ten-year cancer research partnership between UCSF and Stanford, the two big Bay Area cancer centres that usually compete.
DonorRobert W. WoodruffCoca-Cola president whose 1937 gift founded Emory's Winship Cancer Institute in memory of his motherAfter his mother Emily Winship Woodruff died of cancer in 1937, he gave Emory University the gift that founded the Winship Clinic; his foundation's $400 million gift in 2018 is building Winship's new Midtown Atlanta home.
DonorMortimer ZuckermanPublisher and developer whose $100 million built Memorial Sloan Kettering's Zuckerman Research CenterHis 2006 pledge of $100 million, then the largest individual commitment in MSK's history, built a 23-storey laboratory tower that nearly doubled the centre's research space.
DonorMichael BloombergJohns Hopkins' largest benefactor; co-founder of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer ImmunotherapyIn 2016 his $50 million, matched by Sidney Kimmel and others to $125 million, launched a Johns Hopkins institute that put more than a hundred scientists and clinicians to work on cancer immunotherapy.DonorGert BoyleColumbia Sportswear chairwoman whose $100 million helped Oregon meet the Knight Cancer ChallengeIn 2014 the Columbia Sportswear chairwoman gave $100 million to OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute, the largest single contribution toward matching Phil and Penny Knight's $500 million challenge.DonorEli BroadWith Edythe Broad, founder of the Broad Institute of MIT and HarvardEli and Edythe Broad gave $100 million in 2004 to start the Broad Institute and kept giving until their total passed $700 million in 2013; the genomics it produced underpins much of precision oncology.DonorPriscilla ChanPaediatrician who, with Mark Zuckerberg, founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the CZ BiohubShe and Mark Zuckerberg founded the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub with the stated mission to cure or prevent all disease; its programmes include engineering the immune system to detect cancer and other diseases early.DonorHelen DillerNamesake of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center; the Diller family's UCSF giving reached $650 million by 2017The cancer centre at UCSF carries her name, and in 2017 the Helen Diller Foundation gave UCSF $500 million, the largest gift in its history, bringing the family's total there to $650 million.DonorLarry EllisonOracle founder behind the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine and the Ellison Institute of TechnologyIn 2016 he founded an institute in Los Angeles to reimagine cancer care, and his Ellison Institute of Technology is building an Oxford campus with a £130 million alliance with the university.DonorBill GatesCo-founder of the Gates Foundation, Gavi's founding partner and the largest private funder of HPV vaccine accessThe Gates Foundation has committed $4.1 billion to Gavi, the vaccine alliance it helped found in 2000, whose HPV programme had fully immunised nearly 60 million girls against cervical cancer by the end of 2024.DonorJohn Jacob Astor IIIWith his wife Charlotte, among the founders of New York Cancer Hospital in 1884, now Memorial Sloan KetteringIn 1884 he and his wife Charlotte were among the group who founded New York Cancer Hospital, the institution that became Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.DonorMartha Rivers IngramBusinesswoman whose family's 1999 gift named Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in memory of E. Bronson IngramIn 1999 the Ingram family made what Vanderbilt calls a transformational gift in honour of the late E. Bronson Ingram; the centre took the family's name and became Tennessee's leading cancer research centre.DonorHerbert IrvingSysco co-founder whose family gave more than $900 million to Columbia, founding the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer CenterHerbert and Florence Irving's gifts to Columbia began with $8.5 million in 1987, founded its cancer centre in 1995 and ended with a $700 million bequest in 2017 for cancer research; the total passed $900 million.DonorAlfred P. Sloan Jr.General Motors chairman who, with Charles Kettering, established the Sloan Kettering InstituteIn the 1940s the General Motors chairman joined engineer Charles Kettering to establish the Sloan Kettering Institute, dedicated in 1948, which gave Memorial Hospital a research arm and its modern name.DonorJohn D. Rockefeller Jr.Donor of the York Avenue land on which Memorial Sloan Kettering standsIn 1936 he donated the land on York Avenue to which Memorial Hospital moved; Memorial Sloan Kettering has been there ever since.DonorLi Ka-shingHong Kong entrepreneur whose foundation funded free hospice care for poor cancer patients and the building that houses the CRUK Cambridge InstituteSince 1980 he has put more than HK$30 billion into his foundation; its Heart of Gold programme gave free hospice care to tens of thousands of poor terminal cancer patients, and its gift built the Cambridge centre that houses Cancer Research UK's institute there.DonorCharles F. KetteringInventor and General Motors research chief who co-founded the Sloan Kettering InstituteThe inventor of the electric car starter and head of General Motors research joined Alfred Sloan in the 1940s to establish the Sloan Kettering Institute for cancer research.DonorSidney KimmelFounder of the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research; namesake of the Johns Hopkins cancer centre and Jefferson's medical collegeThe Jones Apparel founder has given $157 million to Johns Hopkins since 2001, which named its cancer centre for him, and put $50 million into the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in 2016.DonorPhil KnightNike co-founder whose gifts to OHSU Knight Cancer Institute total more than $2.6 billionPhil and Penny Knight gave OHSU $100 million in 2008, a $500 million challenge in 2013 that Oregon met within two years, and $2 billion in 2025, described by OHSU as the largest gift to a US university.DonorDavid H. KochProstate cancer patient whose gifts built the MIT Koch Institute and the MSK Koch Center for Cancer CareTreated for prostate cancer from 1992, he gave MIT $100 million in 2007 to build an institute that puts engineers and cancer biologists under one roof, and MSK $150 million in 2015 for a new outpatient cancer building.DonorAlbert LaskerAdvertising pioneer who co-founded the Lasker Foundation with Mary Lasker in 1942The man who invented modern advertising put his fortune and his methods behind medical research, founding the Lasker Foundation with his wife Mary in 1942; after his death in 1952 she carried the campaign for cancer research into law.DonorGoh Cheng LiangNippon Paint magnate whose Goh Foundation gave $50 million for Singapore's public proton therapy centreHis Goh Foundation's $50 million gift built the Goh Cheng Liang Proton Therapy Centre at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, the only public proton therapy service in the country.DonorDaniel K. LudwigShipping magnate who endowed the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in 1971In 1971 he put nearly all of his international holdings into a cancer research institute that carries his name reluctantly; it has since spent more than $1.8 billion of its own money on cancer science.DonorAnn LurieNurse and philanthropist behind Northwestern's Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer CenterAfter her husband Robert was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer in 1987 at 46, she turned the family's fortune to Northwestern's cancer centre, which carries his name, and to the children's hospital that carries both.DonorMarc LustgartenCablevision executive whose pancreatic cancer diagnosis launched the Lustgarten FoundationDiagnosed 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.DonorLucille P. MarkeyCalumet Farm owner whose gifts founded the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer CenterIn the late 1970s the owner of Calumet Farm approved a $1 million gift, the first of many, and in 1983 the Lucille Parker Markey Cancer Center was founded in her name in Lexington.DonorMichael MilkenProstate cancer patient who founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation in 1993Diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 1993, the financier founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation, whose grants helped pay for the science behind abiraterone and enzalutamide and built a network of precision oncology centres for US veterans.DonorSean ParkerFounder of the Parker Institute for Cancer ImmunotherapyIn 2016 he founded and funded an institute that runs cancer immunotherapy research as one network across a dozen leading cancer centres, sharing data, samples and patents rather than competing for them.DonorRichard RogelDonor whose 2018 gift renamed the University of Michigan's cancer centre the Rogel Cancer CenterRichard and Susan Rogel's 2018 gift to the University of Michigan renamed its NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centre, founded in 1986, the Rogel Cancer Center.DonorJon M. Huntsman Sr.Cancer survivor who founded and funded Huntsman Cancer InstituteA chemicals billionaire treated for cancer several times, he and his wife Karen founded Huntsman Cancer Institute in 1995 and their family gave more than $400 million to build its research institute and hospital.DonorBilly StarrFounder of the Pan-Mass Challenge, which has raised $1.125 billion for Dana-FarberAfter his mother died of melanoma he organised a bike ride across Massachusetts in 1980 with 36 riders; the Pan-Mass Challenge has since raised $1.125 billion for Dana-Farber and passes on every rider-raised dollar.DonorRatan TataChairman of Tata Trusts, whose cancer care programme is building a network of 20 hospitals across seven Indian statesUnder his chairmanship Tata Trusts launched a cancer care programme in 2017 to bring affordable treatment closer to home: 20 hospitals across seven states and, with the Assam government, a three-level network of 19 cancer facilities across the north-east.DonorSir Dorabji TataIndustrialist whose trust, endowed with his entire fortune, built the Tata Memorial Hospital in 1941After his wife Meherbai's illness and death in 1931 he founded the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in 1932 and left it everything he had; the Trust built Tata Memorial in 1941, called the first large contribution of India to the international fight against cancer.DonorSanford I. WeillBanker whose $100 million matching grant launched the Weill Cancer Hub West at UCSF and StanfordIn May 2025 the Weill Family Foundation's $100 million challenge launched a $200 million, ten-year cancer research partnership between UCSF and Stanford, the two big Bay Area cancer centres that usually compete.DonorRobert W. WoodruffCoca-Cola president whose 1937 gift founded Emory's Winship Cancer Institute in memory of his motherAfter his mother Emily Winship Woodruff died of cancer in 1937, he gave Emory University the gift that founded the Winship Clinic; his foundation's $400 million gift in 2018 is building Winship's new Midtown Atlanta home.DonorMortimer ZuckermanPublisher and developer whose $100 million built Memorial Sloan Kettering's Zuckerman Research CenterHis 2006 pledge of $100 million, then the largest individual commitment in MSK's history, built a 23-storey laboratory tower that nearly doubled the centre's research space.What the gifts built
Institutes, centres and funds that the people above founded, endowed or raised money for. Each link opens the record with its donors listed.
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center8
- Johns Hopkins Hospital / Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center4
- Stanford Health Care / Stanford Cancer Institute4
- UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center4
- MD Anderson Cancer Center3
- Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania2
- Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center2
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT2
- Melanoma Research Alliance2
- OHSU Knight Cancer Institute2
- Prostate Cancer Foundation2
- Tata Memorial Centre2
- Tata Trusts2
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
- Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre / CRUK Cambridge Institute
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Ellison Institute of Technology
- Gates Foundation
- Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University
- Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah
- Lasker Foundation
- Li Ka Shing Foundation
- Ludwig Cancer Research
- Lustgarten Foundation
- Markey Cancer Center, University of Kentucky
- National Cancer Centre Singapore
- Pan-Mass Challenge
- Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
- Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Jefferson Health
- Tata Medical Center, Kolkata
- The Jimmy Fund
- University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center
- University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center
- Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
- Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University
- World Health Organization Cancer Programme
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Suggest a hero or heroine
Every entry here rests on a public source: a foundation page, an obituary, a published account. If someone changed cancer through their case, their campaign or their work and is not listed, open an issue with a link and a sentence on what changed because of them. Living private individuals are added only with their own public account.
Editor’s note. Two names were suggested for this page, recorded as “Sid” and “Diana”, the latter in connection with Jason Laster’s wife’s case. We could not identify either from public sources and have not added them, rather than guess. If you know who they are, please send a link.
Open a suggestion on GitHub →Why this matters
Almost every drug on this site exists because someone agreed to be the first to take it, and almost every screening programme fills up when a person, not a leaflet, tells their story. Yet patients still lack understanding, navigation and agency in their own care. The people on this page show what changes when they have it. See the bottleneck Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency and the ideas attached to it.