Every child’s cancer is different. Their treatment should be, too.
My daughter Greta has been fighting a rare and aggressive pediatric brain cancer called ependymoma since she was two years old.
Over the past four years, she has endured five brain surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy, CAR T-cell therapy, and multiple recurrences.
But those words don’t really capture what that means for a child.
After each tumor, Greta has had to relearn how to walk. At one point, she even had to relearn how to swallow.
Each time, she has fought her way back.
And today, Greta is thriving.
She swims. She crafts. She loves candy. She just started kindergarten. She wants to grow up to become a veterinarian and a babysitter.
If we can stop this cancer from continuing to return, Greta has the potential to grow up, go to college like her big sister, have a career, build a family, and live a full life.
Our job is to get her there.
There has to be a better way.
At times, recurrent cancer feels like a terrible game of whack-a-mole: a tumor appears, we remove or treat it, Greta recovers and learns to walk again—and then we wait and hope another one doesn’t appear.
When it does, the entire cycle begins again.
Greta should not have to spend her childhood recovering from the last tumor while we wait for the next one.
Let’s stop the tumors from coming back.
When standard treatments stop working, families may turn to clinical trials. These trials are critically important to advancing medicine, but by design they are built to answer specific scientific questions across groups of patients. That means the available trial may not perfectly match the biology of one particular child’s tumor.
Cancer is extraordinarily individual.
Through Greta’s treatment, I began connecting with other parents of children with recurrent pediatric brain tumors. We shared MRI reports. We compared tumor-testing results. We talked about treatments, side effects, responses and recurrences.
We were essentially pooling information ourselves, trying to understand why something worked for one child but not another.
The conclusion I kept coming back to was remarkably simple:
Every child’s cancer is different. Their treatment should be, too.
For the first time, we may have the tools to do it.
There is tremendous reason for hope.
When Greta was first diagnosed four years ago, her tumor was tested against roughly 20 genetic markers. After a later recurrence, we were able to investigate thousands of characteristics of her tumor.
That difference is staggering.
Today, increasingly sophisticated molecular testing can tell us far more about what is driving an individual cancer. Laboratory testing can sometimes help identify drugs worth investigating. Artificial intelligence and computational tools can help researchers analyze enormous amounts of biological data.
And emerging technologies may allow us to turn some of that information into treatments designed specifically around an individual patient’s cancer.
The science is moving incredibly quickly.
Unfortunately, access isn’t.
The first mission: Greta’s personalized mRNA vaccine
With your help, we are raising money to design, manufacture and deliver a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine for Greta.
This isn’t an off-the-shelf vaccine.
Researchers will use information derived from Greta’s own tumor to identify potential targets and create a vaccine designed specifically around her cancer.
The goal is to teach Greta’s immune system to recognize those tumor-specific targets—and hopefully find and attack cancer cells carrying them.
Why an mRNA cancer vaccine?
Personalized mRNA cancer vaccines are one of the most exciting emerging areas of cancer research.
The concept is remarkably personal: sequence an individual patient’s tumor, identify abnormalities unique to that cancer, and create a vaccine designed to teach that patient’s immune system to recognize those targets.
And researchers are beginning to see encouraging results in pancreatic cancer and melanoma.
They do not prove that a personalized mRNA vaccine will work for Greta.
But they demonstrate something incredibly important: scientists can analyze an individual person’s tumor, identify tumor-specific targets, manufacture a personalized mRNA vaccine around those targets, and generate a powerful and potentially long-lasting immune response.
We want to bring that same personalized approach to pediatric brain cancer.
Our goal is to use the personalized vaccine as part of a coordinated treatment strategy designed around Greta—the biology of her tumor, where her disease is located, what treatments she has already received, and what we have learned from her previous tumors.
That may include surgery and other targeted or immune-based treatments alongside vaccination.
Rather than asking, “What treatment is normally given to a child with ependymoma?” we want to ask:
“What combination of treatments makes the most sense for Greta’s cancer?”
Why do we have to pay for it?
Because this isn’t an approved standard treatment for pediatric ependymoma.
Because this is experimental personalized medicine, much of this work is not covered by insurance.
So we have to fund it ourselves.
That’s where you come in.
We are asking people to help us build Greta’s vaccine. Give whatever feels right for your family.
And then please share Greta’s story.
Because thousands of people giving a little can allow us to do something enormous.
Thank you for helping us build Greta’s personalized mRNA vaccine.
Giving her the chance to grow up.
And building a future where personalized medicine isn’t something desperate parents have to find and fund on their own.