Canadian fund for Israel cancer research announced $1 million donation

The Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) have announced a record-breaking gift to ICRF Toronto of US $1million, the largest sum ever raised by ICRF Toronto. The sum will be used to create the Beverley Librach Abshez Fund for Ovarian and Female Reproductive Cancer Research.

The record-breaking gift is from anonymous donors, but was made in the memory of Beverley Librach Abshez, who died of ovarian cancer.

“This extraordinary gift will make a real difference in the fight against female reproductive cancers,” Bryna Goldberg, ICRF’s international chairwoman said, adding: “Israeli scientists are making great strides in cancer research every day and funding like this is critical to ensuring their efforts continue. Even in these unprecedented times, our donors continue to provide hope.”

ICRF is the largest charitable organization outside of Israel with a sole focus on supporting cancer research within the Jewish state. Since it’s founding in 1975, ICRF has funded over 2,500 grants, totaling more than US $77.5 million, which have been awarded to hundreds of researchers at leading hospitals in Israel.

Past recipients include the first two Israelis to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in addition to a number of winners of the coveted Israel Prize, and other accolades.

Following a peer-review process, ICRF wil fund some 69 cancer projects in total in 2020-21, including research into blood, brain, breast, ovarian, pancreatic and skin cancers, among others.

Previous funding has resulted in the production of numerous therapy drugs for different kinds of cancer – notably Gleevec, Doxil and Velcade.

This article was originally published on JPost.com.