Elizabeth’s Hope

Elizabeth’s Hope, was launched in 2010 after Elizabeth Minter was diagnosed with gliomatosis cerebri and before said sickness took her life. 

Elizabeth’s Hope has a unique mission: It will provide cutting-edge personalized medicine to children and adolescents with rare and operable brain cancers. Using a state-of-the-art gene sequencing machine and a team of scientists — including surgeons, molecular geneticists, pathologists, and bioinformatics researchers — the Weill Cornell Pediatric Brain and Spine Center will be able to identify the best treatment for each young patient, using methods that are currently either unavailable or cost-prohibitive for many families.

In a simultaneous effort, they’ll be testing innovative new delivery methods that bypass the blood-brain barrier and strike directly at tumors with the therapeutic agent identified as being most effective against that particular tumor.

Research funded by Elizabeth’s Hope will focus on rare tumors like gliomatosis cerebri, which is what claimed Elizabeth’s life. These cancers are often neglected by researchers due to the small numbers of cases. But for families struggling with this diagnosis, research studies to find these personalized treatments are a matter of life and death.

Inspired by Elizabeth’s courage and determination, Elizabeth’s Hope will accelerate finding a cure by becoming the country’s first pediatric cancer center to aggregate patient samples into a nationwide “genetic tissue bank,” accelerating and enabling this critical research.

Thanks to the work of Elizabeth’s Hope, the Weill Cornell Pediatric Brain and Spine Center will become New York City’s go-to center for rare and inoperable brain cancer in children, teens, and young adults, and will foster collaboration among leading medical institutions to efficiently focus research efforts to find better treatments and cures.

Learn more about The Elizabeth’s Hope Foundation here.