In 2011, what began as a $156,000 research grant between Children’s Cancer Institute in Australia and The Cure Starts Now has grown into a powerful global partnership advancing hope for children diagnosed with the deadliest paediatric brain cancers. Today, The Cure Starts Now, together with the incredible partners of the DIPG/DMG Collaborative, has contributed more than $3 million to groundbreaking research into diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and diffuse midline glioma (DMG).
The DIPG/DMG Collaborative was founded by The Cure Starts Now as a global cooperative effort of independent foundations and research partners working together to fund innovative DIPG and DMG research. These foundations and families are focused on reducing duplication while increasing transparency and collaboration among researchers.
This funding milestone stands as powerful evidence of what family-funded, family-focused cancer research can achieve. What started with grieving families determined to change the future for children facing DIPG has become an international movement accelerating research, collaboration, and discovery across the globe.
The Cure Starts Now Australia was one of the organization’s very first international chapters, helping expand the mission beyond the United States and demonstrating the worldwide urgency to find better treatments for children battling brain cancer. Since then, The Cure Starts Now has continued extending its reach internationally, with active chapters now spanning Australia, Canada, and Japan — uniting families, researchers, and supporters around a shared mission to find The Homerun Cure™ for cancer.
According to the recipient of that first grant, Professor David Ziegler, DIPG — one of a deadly group of brain cancers called diffuse midline gliomas (DMG) — remains one of the most devastating diagnoses in paediatric oncology, with most children surviving less than a year after diagnosis.
Working both as a paediatric oncologist at the Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital and as Head of the Brain Tumour Group at Children’s Cancer Institute, Professor Ziegler said that every conversation with a family facing DIPG reinforces the urgency to continue pursuing answers:
“Having to deliver such heartbreaking news is the worst possible conversation you can have with a parent, but now there is hope for the future. Through dedicated research, and thanks to the support of The Cure Starts Now, we are starting to change the outlook for children diagnosed with DIPG.”
Associate Professor Maria Tsoli, Senior Scientist in the Brain Cancer Group at Children’s Cancer Institute, said the partnership has been instrumental in advancing critical discoveries.
“The support of The Cure Starts Now and the DIPG/DMG Collaborative has been transformative for my research. Their commitment to funding high-impact science has enabled us to pursue important research questions that would otherwise be out of reach, directly driving key discoveries, including identifying new targets and therapies for DIPG, as well as developing preclinical models that are now informing clinical translation. Without their unwavering belief in our work, many of these breakthroughs simply would not have happened.”
Some of the pioneering research projects at the Institute funded by The Cure Starts Now and the DIPG/DMG Collaborative include investigations into novel metabolic therapies, epigenetic treatment combinations, immune-targeting strategies, and breakthrough drug combinations designed specifically to attack DIPG and DMG cells while extending survival in preclinical models.
Keith Desserich, Chairman and Co-Founder of The Cure Starts Now, said the organization’s mission has always centred on ensuring that families facing childhood brain cancer help drive the research that could ultimately save lives.
“This milestone represents what can happen when families refuse to accept hopelessness and instead choose action,” he said. “Every dollar raised by our families and supporters around the world has helped fuel research that is bringing us closer to meaningful breakthroughs for children diagnosed with DIPG and DMG. In the mission to find a cure for one of the world’s toughest cancers, our partnership with Children’s Cancer Institute has been a cornerstone, supporting 18 research projects spanning more than 15 years. Together, we are proving that family-funded research can change the trajectory of paediatric brain cancer.”
The partnership’s continued success reflects not only scientific progress, but also the extraordinary determination of families worldwide through The Cure Starts Now and the DIPG/DMG Collaborative, who continue turning grief into action — ensuring that children diagnosed tomorrow have more hope than children diagnosed yesterday.
