MRF Endowment Case for Support

The MRF’s mission is to eradicate melanoma by accelerating medical RESEARCH while EDUCATING and ADVOCATING for the melanoma community.

A young woman named Diana Ashby, originally diagnosed in her late twenties, was now facing her third recurrence of melanoma. She was told by her treatment team that there were no options left and that she should plan accordingly. For Diana, quitting was not an option and she knew that she had to use her voice to help change the status quo for patients like her. With the help of her friends and family she formed the Melanoma Research Foundation (MRF) slowly and steadily raising funds to support its first research grant. At the time, this was revolutionary as there was little funding for clinician-scientists in melanoma research — why go into a field with such poor outcomes? When the MRF made its first grant to the scientific community, it was the only funder besides the federal government. The need for a cure Twenty-five years ago, there were no FDA-approved treatments for melanoma.

PATIENTS FELT HELPLESS AND METASTATIC PATIENTS WERE LEFT WITH FEW OPTIONS.

MRF

DIANA ASHBY HELPS FOUND THE MRF IN 1996.

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