Elevate Childhood Cancer Research and Advocacy

11/05/2026

Exciting News for Pediatric Kidney Cancer Research!

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Brian Crompton and Dr. Elizabeth Mullen have been awarded the $75,000 Trailblazer Pediatric Renal Tumor Collaborative Impact Award!

Their innovative research, “Detection, Diagnosis, and Risk-stratification by Liquid Biopsy in Pediatric Renal Tumors,” aims to advance earlier detection, more accurate diagnosis, and personalized treatment approaches for children with kidney cancer.

This award highlights the power of collaboration, bringing together four organizations to pool resources and support promising research with the potential to improve outcomes for children.

Made possible through the collective partnership of:
🧡Elevate Childhood Cancer Research and Advocacy
🧡Joey’s Wings
🧡Kidney Cancer Association
🧡Wipe Out Wilms

Four organizations. One shared mission. Greater impact.

Congratulations to Dr. Crompton and Dr. Mullen!

11/02/2026

The ACCELERATE platform held their strategy session this week in Paris focused on a common target found in solid tumors:B7H3.

Elevate is a proud community partner for the platform as part of our strategic investment pillar aimed at bringing precision diagnostics & therapeutics to young people with cancer. We’d like to thank The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation for their contributions to this platform designed to strategically accelerate progress for our kids.

Industry scientists, academic scientists & clinicians, patient advocates, along with regulatory reps from the FDA & EMA came together to determine the best way to improve current approaches with this specific B7H3 target. Big conversations took place around the current need to evolve CAR-T to improve its efficacy for solid tumors, & how to expand access to ADCs to our kids!

An important discussion about biopsies during clinical trials opened up a host of possible solutions for the need to better know how these treatments work, especially what’s happening in the tumor microenvironment.

While we advocate for all pediatric cancers, B7H3 offers particular hope for those diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma or Wilms tumor, two diseases Elevate particularly lends its voice. Elevate is proud to ensure the patient voice is present during these moments when solutions are being offered.

10/29/2026

Elevate Childhood Cancer Research and Advocacy is a proud founding member of the Rhabdo Coalition!

This first ever collaborative grant cycle is the result of years of effort and it represents a new era of hope for families facing a rhabdomyosarcoma diagnosis. This grant offers a formal process to pool dollars for a greater impact! When you donate to Elevate, you are supporting larger, more strategic investment in research!

10/28/2026

A quick look back at last month’s CureFest! 🎗️

It was wonderful to reconnect with so many familiar faces and meet new ones along the way. Thank you to everyone who stopped by, shared a conversation, and connected with Elevate!

We’re excited about the new relationships formed and look forward to continuing to build on those connections.💛

If you were at CureFest and we haven’t had a chance to connect, please send us a message! And if you weren’t able to attend but would love to learn more about getting involved with Elevate, we’d love to hear from you, too.

There are plenty of ways to volunteer and make an impact, whether you’re joining us in person or lending a hand from anywhere across the country.

Together, we can continue to advocate, empower & invest!

10/24/2026

Sometimes the next investment isn’t a check.

Funding promising science is an important part of Elevate’s work—but our definition of investment is broader.

Strategic investment is our intentional use of financial resources and strategic participation to help build the scientific, clinical, and collaborative infrastructure needed to advance precision medicine and therapy development.

✨Sometimes that means funding research.

✨Sometimes it means being present in the scientific spaces where ideas, collaborations, and priorities are taking shape.

✨And sometimes we leave those rooms realizing there is a gap we may be uniquely positioned to fill.

That happened in London.

Researchers generate evidence about tumors—their biology, pathways, biomarkers, vulnerabilities, and responses to treatment.

Patients and families hold another important body of knowledge: what it is like to navigate diagnosis, make treatment decisions, consider research participation, live with uncertainty, and experience the long-term consequences of treatment.

Those experiences can be studied systematically, too.

We left London thinking about opportunities for Elevate not only to fund research conducted by others, but potentially to lead or partner on research examining the lived experiences of patients and families—generating evidence that can help inform and support the biological and clinical work.

Sometimes we fund the work. Sometimes we connect the people. And sometimes we recognize a gap and help build what’s missing.

👉🏼That’s strategic investment.

10/20/2026

One of the most meaningful parts of our time in London at the 13th International Pediatric Renal Tumor Biology Meeting was helping ensure that lived experience was represented alongside scientific expertise.

Elevate provided an advocacy travel grant for Helen Rolf, a long-term Wilms tumor survivor, to attend and share her perspective directly with researchers and clinicians.

Helen was diagnosed with Wilms tumor at just 16 months old. She underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and abdominal radiation—and later went on to study medicine 🩺 at Cambridge and become a physician herself.

Ultimately, the long-term effects of her childhood cancer treatment forced her to retire from medicine. Nearly 50 years after her diagnosis, Helen now helps connect and support Wilms tumor survivors experiencing long-term late effects. Her perspective belongs in a room focused on the biology and future of Wilms tumor.

For Elevate, that’s advocacy: putting patient voices where decisions are made.✨

Researchers need biological samples, clinical data, technology, and funding to answer important scientific questions. They also need the perspectives of the people who live with the consequences of those questions—and the questions we haven’t yet thought to ask.

Patient voice isn’t an addition to the science.
It helps make the science better. 🔬

10/18/2026

Why does Elevate show up in rooms focused on basic biology?

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking at the 13th International Pediatric Renal Tumors Biology Meeting in London, alongside researchers and clinicians working to better understand pediatric renal tumors.

My role wasn’t to teach scientists about tumor biology. It was to remind them what—and who—the biology is ultimately for.

I shared lived experiences from patients and families, but also something equally important: the patient advocacy community can be a partner in moving science forward.

We can connect researchers with patients and families, gather lived-experience perspectives, convene communities, translate complex science, build collaborations—and help invest in promising work.

I was also proud to carry the work of our Pediatric Renal Tumor Coalition partners with me, sharing the collective outcomes that have come from researchers, clinicians, organizations, advocates, survivors, and families working together.

And there was an added benefit: science doesn’t stay neatly within disease silos. Many of the scientists in the room work across pediatric solid tumors, which gave me opportunities to hear updates on important crossover work in rhabdomyosarcoma, CAR T-cell trials, antibody-drug conjugates, emerging basic biology, and more.

That exchange goes both ways: we bring the patient and advocacy community into scientific spaces—and bring new knowledge, relationships, and opportunities back to the communities we serve.

That’s why Elevate shows up. To Advocate, Empower & Invest.

~Dr. Robyn Spoon, Elevate CEO & Founder

10/15/2026

It all comes back to our kids.

We love seeing a Wilms tumor🧡 dad from the Elevate community showing up to support a golf fundraiser honoring one of our Elevate Voices families impacted by rhabdomyosarcoma. 💛

While the needs of each diagnosis can be incredibly specific, so much of this work overlaps—and improving outcomes for children and young adults takes all of us.

That same spirit is reflected in our Wilms Tumor Virtual Forum. While we dive deeply into the unique needs of the pediatric renal tumor community, several expert sessions address topics that matter across childhood cancer—from survivorship to finding reliable information and advocating effectively.

We can advocate for the specific needs of those impacted by Wilms tumor. We can advocate for the specific needs of those impacted by rhabdomyosarcoma. And we can still stand shoulder to shoulder, share what we learn and support progress across communities. 🧡💛

Because at Elevate, we believe collaboration matters—and every step toward better outcomes for one group can help move the entire childhood cancer community forward.

It all comes back to our kids—and letting kids be kids.🎗️

10/13/2026

10/11/2026

Missed a session? You can catch them all on demand!

All of the expert sessions from our Wilms Tumor Virtual Forum, presented by Elevate Childhood Cancer Research and Advocacy and the Kidney Cancer Association are now available on our YouTube channels!

Want to watch them all? Check out the full playlist link 🔗in the comments and explore the sessions at your own pace.

And while the forum focused on Wilms tumor and pediatric renal cancers, there are valuable takeaways for families across all pediatric cancer diagnoses, including:

👉🏽How to Find Reliable Information — practical guidance for navigating childhood cancer information 🎗️

👉🏼Thriving Survivorship: Transfusion-Related Iron Overload — an important survivorship topic for families managing the long-term effects of treatment 🩸

🖥️Watch, share, and help us make trusted education more accessible to families and advocates.