THE DEGREGORIO FAMILY FOUNDATION INC

Upper Gastrointestinal Malignancies - including cancers of the stomach, esophagus, and the gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) - are responsible for over one million new cancer diagnoses worldwide, and are the second most common cause of global, cancer-related deaths. In the United States, despite the near epidemic rise in GEJ malignancies, these cancers remain orphan diseases - underfunded and under researched by the medical community, and largely by the pharmaceutical industry.

The DeGregorio Family Foundation provides seed money for innovative research focused on curing gastric and esophageal cancers. This seed money is crucial for scientists to take innovative ideas and
nurture them to a level where institutional funding is possible

DeGregorio Family Foundation's (DFF's)) efforts are focused on facilitating collaborative research on the pathogenesis, early diagnosis, and treatment of Upper GI Malignancies.

Each year, DFF awards $300,000 to $500,000 in research grants to innovative researchers and clinical scientists worldwide.

The organization fills and important niche in providing seed money -- in the forms of these grants -- to fund nascent, but promising ideas. This money, in turn, enables the research scientists to validate their ideas and attract more significant institutional sources of funding known as "follow-on funding."

Grant applications are reviewed and scored by the DeGregorio Family Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), comprising the world's leading minds in gastroesophageal cancer research who share the will and talent to make meaningful inroads in the advancement of research on these diseases. This fully independent body scores and awards all grant applications utilizing the same peer review process and nine-point National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications scoring system which is at the heart of the NIH grant process.

The DeGregorio Family Foundation has raised more than $8.3 million for gastroesophageal cancer research. Each year, DFF awards $300,000-$500,000 in research grants to innovative researchers and clinical scientists worldwide. To date, DFF has awarded a total of over $7.9 million in research grants to a variety of institutions including Dana-Farber Cancer, USC Keck School of Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Funding from DFF has opened the door to more than $39 million in additional funding for continuing research from other sources, the majority of it from the NIH. This research is producing results. New research papers are being published and disseminated to others in the field, encouraging supplementary and complementary research. Much of the research DFF has funded is near the patient-treatment stage, with testing and trials in the works.

On average, DFF turns every one dollar of research it funds into 11 dollars of subsequent funding from institutional sources.