A Breakthrough In Childhood Cancer Research

When a child battling cancer has finally been declared cancer-free and later sadly relapses, their percentage of survival decreases drastically.

In 2018, Dr. Diana Azzam from Florida International University was one of the first to receive funds from the Live Like Bella pediatric Cancer Research Initiative for her study on Ex Vivo Drug Screening and Genomics profiling to Guide Treatments for Children with Relapsed or Refractory Solid Tumors and Leukemia.

In April of 2023, her groundbreaking study being done in collaboration with Dr. Maggie Fader at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, was published on the cover of Nature Medicine – one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world! (for some perspective – if you were a fashion designer this is the equivalent of being on the cover of Vogue Magazine!)

Dr. Azzam’s lab developed a new functional precision medicine approach, the first of its kind. This new cutting-edge approach combines genetic testing with a new way to test individual drugs and their synergistic effects on tumor samples.

An astounding 83% of children have shown improvement, and for 8 year old Logan Jenner, it saved his life.

Click Here to see the ABC News story about this amazing study!