For the second straight year, St. John’s men’s and women’s basketball programs raised $100,000 for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation by hosting the sixth annual Dribble for the Cure fundraiser on Saturday morning.
This year, the Johnnies raised a record breaking $105,000, increasing the total money raised since 2011 to $500,000.
Dr. Mitchell Cairo’s research has been greatly impacted by the success of this event. His work has helped raise survival rates in some childhood cancers from 20 percent to more than 60 percent.
“It’s already had a major impact,” Dr. Cairo told The Torch. “The work that we’re doing is generating new therapies for patients who have failed their underlying disease and also developing new therapies for patients who are now having less side effects and less long term complications.