Donors are shaping the future of medicine by supporting the innovative research of top physicians, like lung cancer specialist Ramaswamy Govindan, MD. He and his colleagues are making medical breakthroughs that give hope and precious time to patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.
As The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Anheuser-Busch Endowed Chair of Medical Oncology, Dr. Govindan has the resources to study the genetic alterations behind different types of lung cancers.
“Today, cancer research is moving forward very rapidly with advances in genome sequencing and immunotherapy,” Dr. Govindan says. “Because of generous donors, we have tools and technology to assess how genes in cancer patients are altered. Our researchers have uncovered many of the gene alterations that make cancer progress. That means we are finding targets for specialized therapy that will give patients more time with their loved ones.”
Donor support, Dr. Govindan says, is integral to advancing this lifesaving research. “Many of these research programs use funds from donors,” Dr. Govindan says. “Initial discoveries made by our researchers supported by donors enable us to get even more funds to do larger-scale projects that could change the future of lung cancer treatment.”