St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

The mission of St. Jude is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric cancer and other catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Specifically we wish to increase the cure rates to over 90% for the major forms of childhood cancer and advance research and treatment of specific childhood diseases such as sickle cell disease and pulmonary infectious diseases. When St. Jude opened its doors in 1962, only 20% of children with cancer survived. Today, helped by innovative research at St. Jude, over 80% survive. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no family ever receives a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food. This allows treatment and research to be conducted at St. Jude in an unsurpassed manner. St. Jude is a world leader in both providing treatment to children and making scientific discoveries that will save the lives of more children in the future.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's strategy is to be highly focused on our mission, and provide a culture and environment in which great doctors and scientists can do their best work - that is why we have been so successful. We are not a typical children's hospital, but instead are a specialty hospital focused on pediatric cancer and life-threatening diseases in children including sickle cell disease and HIV/AIDS. This strategy has enabled us to become a world leader in our fields of study. We conduct basic, translational and clinical research designed to find cures, improve diagnosis, enhance treatment outcomes, and minimize adverse effects of treatment for these diseases. Approximately 90% of cancer patients treated at St. Jude are enrolled on one or more of our research studies. We serve as a global resource by sharing our knowledge and discoveries with health care and scientific research professionals around the world. Integral to the success of the organization is our ability to raise the necessary funds to support the mission and accelerate progress.We make our discoveries and treatment innovations widely available to the global healthcare and research communities. We share the primary data from our research freely with those wishing to use this information for research purposes. This includes the data from our Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP), the largest effort of its type. We also provide online resources like our PCGP Explore and Cure4Kids websites.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center devolved solely to children. This designation goes to hospitals that are highly advanced in research, treatment and prevention of cancer. The following capabilities help our organization achieve our stated goals.* World class physicians and researchers.* Highly integrated healthcare teams, providing seamless multi-disciplinary care and research, increasing the speed of discoveries and their translation into new treatments.* Cutting edge research and clinical care facilities.* An efficient fundraising organization that ensures the operation of St. Jude, which relies primarily on the philanthropic support of loyal donors, volunteers and partners.* A committed Board of Governors and Directors.* Collaborations with scientists and physicians around the world.

The most obvious measure of our success are the lifetime of moments we give to children whom we successfully treat. St. Jude has played a significant role in the increased survival for children with pediatric cancer and other catastrophic diseases—not just those we've treated directly, but those who have benefitted from our discoveries. These include: * In 1972, St. Jude achieved a 50% survival rate for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) through an innovative combination of therapies. At that time, the estimated survival rate was 17% percent. The results revolutionized leukemia treatment worldwide. * St. Jude is credited with the discovery in 1997 that bone marrow transplants from unrelated, genetically matched donors are as effective in treating childhood leukemia as those from patients' siblings who are genetically matched. Currently, St. Jude has the largest pediatric bone marrow transplant program in the country.* In 2006, St. Jude reported 94% survival rates for a group of patients with ALL, a dramatic increase over the 1962 estimated survival rate of just 4 percent. * St. Jude pioneered the elimination of cranial irradiation in treating most leukemia patients, greatly reducing immediate and long-term effects in these patients (2009).* St. Jude was the first hospital in the world to perform gene therapy on a pediatric brain tumor patient (1995). * St. Jude discovered that sickle cell disease can be cured through a bone marrow transplant (1984). This is used in patients where the disease is so severe it justifies the inherent risks of a transplant.* St. Jude is currently engaged in the largest effort in the world to do whole genome sequencing of pediatric cancer tumors. Launched in 2010, the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project holds promise for developing improved approaches to diagnosing and treating childhood cancers. Already, the project has generated more high-coverage, whole genome data than from all other sources combined.Unfortunately, what we still have to accomplish is acutely felt by our physicians and researchers every day: that there are still children who are not cured with today's best treatment. Until all children can be cured, we have not achieved our ultimate goal—to find cures to the diseases we treat so that no child shall die in the dawn of life.