The Beez Foundation decided at its conception to bring a different approach to the fight against childhood brain cancer.

When we had lost Jennifer, we met with numerous people to see what we could do to both thank and repay the people that supported us throughout the ordeal of Jenn’s fight.

We immediately wanted to do something tangible and thankful for the personnel and the hospitals that treated Jenn, anything to mitigate our grief and loss. However, after discussing our thoughts, we came to the realization that while we were not qualified to raise millions of research dollars, our talents certainly lay in the ability to raise money needed for early phase researchers to conduct Proof of Concept studies.

These are studies that allow an early phase researcher the ability to determine if a given course of research is viable and whether it deserves further funding. The Beez Foundation decided to focus on raising money for this preliminary research work.

However, once the first round of research proposals arrived, we desperately saw that we needed medical advice to just understand the proposals – thus, the creation of the Medical Advisory Board.

This highly qualified group takes their valuable time each year to review, discuss and even debate the various requests. The Medical Advisory Board passes their suggestions to the Executive Committee for decisions.

We must take a moment to explain that this work is not an effort that has immediate results; in fact, there may never be a suitable outcome. But, we do recognize that even failed research is valuable inasmuch as it eliminates wasted effort.

So in saying this, the Board understands that the money directed to these early phase researchers may never produce results that we, the normal, non-research types, could ever see.

The Beez Foundation and the cancer research effort overall, are fortunate that we have this unique Medical Advisory Board. Their help and recommendations have helped us to fund not one but two early phase research programs that have gone on to clinical trials!

The Beez Foundation holds the whole Medical Advisory Board in the highest regard and appreciates their contributions in this all too important quest for a cure.

Peter Cole, MD	Ira Dunkel, MD	Maureen Gutzweiler, MS	Glen Landesman, MD	Mark Souwedaine, MD