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Bequest to Invigorate Pancreatic Cancer Research at UCSF
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The donors in the Paul May and Frank Stein Waiting Room at UCSF (May at left) |
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Pancreatic cancer is among the most painful and deadliest of cancers, afflicting 37,000 new patients each year and killing 33,000 individuals. Sufferers are rarely diagnosed with the disease until symptoms have already appeared; by that time, it has often advanced beyond a curable stage.
These are statistics that Frank Stein knows all too well. The longtime San Francisco resident lost both his mother and his sister to pancreatic cancer.
"It's a very difficult disease, a terrible disease," he says. "It's a painful thing to watch a family member go through."
Yet for all its cruelty, pancreatic cancer receives surprisingly little media attention. Research dollars are also in short supply.
Stein and his partner, Paul May, are dedicated to helping reverse those trends. Their planned bequest of $2 million will support pancreatic cancer research at UCSF. This commitment comes on the heels of several years of generous support for the University's efforts to understand and treat the disease.
"The research underway at UCSF is truly promising," May affirms. "Frank and I were extremely impressed by the caliber of the University's research team. They give us hope that would-be victims of this disease won't have to suffer as Frank's mother and sister did."
"We need to improve therapies by orders of magnitude if we expect to improve the cure rate," says Margaret Tempero, MD, chief of medical oncology at UCSF. "Although we have a long way to go, this generous bequest will allow us to take our research efforts to the next level. Pancreatic cancer may be stubborn, but with time and effort, it's something that we can beat."
To support pancreatic cancer research at UCSF, contact Alison Gray at 415/514-1646 or agray@support.ucsf.edu.
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