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Hope, Powered by Parents & Science
BY AMELIA ROESSLER
W hen a child in Colorado is for hope. For more than two decades, the Morgan Adams Foundation – born in Denver and fueled by determined parents – has been turning that hope into cutting- edge research that is saving children’s lives. It all started with a 5-year-old girl named Morgan Adams, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed about 11 months later. At the time, there were just 20 neuro oncologists in the world that could treat pediatric brain tumors. One of them, Dr. Nick Foreman, happened to be at Children’s Hospital Colorado, the same state Morgan was in. diagnosed with cancer, families often find themselves searching Joan worked with Nick Foreman and asked “What can we do?” He said, “I want to set up a research program,” explains Kat Russell, the Foundation’s Director of Strategic Marketing.
raising about $100,000 and enough to start up this science program to start doing research. THE FOUNDATION To date, the Foundation has funded nearly $12 million in childhood cancer research, with a goal to expand that and their impact. The Foundation has a named lab at the University of Colorado Anschutz, “Morgan Adams Foundation Pediatric Brain Tumor Program,” which is one of the top two pediatric brain tumor labs in the world. What the Foundation does differently, though, is make sure their data, research, and dialogue are open and shared between programs everywhere. “It works amazingly well when you have doctors that are treating these kids in a clinic and then also run these research programs,
happen almost at a real-time trail. “They’ll look at the tumor’s genetic makeup and see, ‘Ok, we know it’s this type. We know it’s the subtype, but let’s see a little bit more detail as to this particular tumor in order to treat it with a personalized protocol.’” Joan had the experience of not having to travel across the world to get her child treated, so she really set out to make sure that Colorado, CU Anschutz, and Children’s became a center for excellence for all pediatric cancer care, Kat says. The Morgan Adams Foundation has amazing stories of kids all over Colorado, not just in Denver. If a child gets cancer in Aspen, or anywhere outside of Denver, Kat says they’re going to go to Children’s to get treated. So the Foundation is the local organization for Colorado in general. “We just continue to leave our kids behind,” Kat says. Currently, pediatric cancer only receives somewhere less than 8% of the national federal research dollars
because they can transfer all that knowledge together,” says Kat.
In 2011, they started the first fundraising,
She said the research oftentimes will
8 COLORADO PARENT JANUARY 2026
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