P A R T
BRAIN STORM 3
FAL L 2 0 1 9 | 9
early 11 years had
passed since losing her
husband to brain cancer
when Anita Zucker stood
N
before a ballroom filled with some of the
world’s top brain cancer experts in February.
While the pain of losing her beloved life
partner was as profound as it was a decade
earlier, on this day, Zucker focused on
the hope of a brighter future for patients
fighting malignant brain tumors and on
the potential of this unique meeting of
the minds during the inaugural ReMission
Summit Against Brain Tumors.
“We can transform the future of brain
cancer research through this summit and
the efforts of each of you,” said Zucker, a UF
Board of Trustees member and chair of the
ReMission Summit. “We are driven by the
same shared aspiration, a vision of a future
where odds have shifted in favor of the
patient, where a brain tumor diagnosis is a
comma, not a full stop, in a patient’s life.”
Hosted by the University of Florida and
UF Health, the ReMission Summit was held
Feb. 22-24 at the Rosen Shingle Creek hotel
in Orlando, bringing together more than
100 expert investigators and physicianscientists
from major brain tumor research
centers in the U.S., Canada and Germany at
the invitation of UF Health’s Duane Mitchell,
MD, PhD, and William A. Friedman, MD.
The summit officially launched the new
ReMission Alliance Against Brain Tumors,
a groundbreaking, collaborative initiative
led by UF that will unite world-leading
neuro-oncology physicians and scientists
in the advancement of brain tumor
immunotherapy research and clinical trials.
“Our goal for the alliance is to transform
brain cancer research and improve patient
survivability over the next 10 years,” said
Mitchell, co-director of the ReMission
Alliance with Friedman.
Earlier this year, Orlando hotel magnate
Harris Rosen and The Harris Rosen
Foundation made a $12 million gift to UF to
help launch the unprecedented initiative.
The gift is the cornerstone of a $100 million
fundraising commitment to support
neurologic initiatives.
Rosen was drawn to the alliance’s
collaborative approach to pooling resources
and research expertise. He said this type
of partnership can create a paradigm shift
in research and treatment of brain cancer
and engineer a brighter future for patients
like his son Adam, who passed away in
November 2018 after a two-and-a-half-year
battle with brain cancer.
UF Health's Duane Mitchell, MD, PhD, addresses the crowd at the
inaugural ReMission Summit Against Brain Tumors in Orlando
in February.
“Instead of a competitive, non-caring,
non-sharing philosophy, the ReMission
Alliance shall forever change this rather
Stone Age approach to a much more
pragmatic, productive and sharing initiative,”
Rosen said. “In addition, we have no doubt
that this new collaborative philosophy will
dramatically impact in a very positive way
the timeframe within which brain cancer
treatments and cures shall be discovered.”
The Rosen gift will also bolster ongoing
research efforts at UF Health. The suite
that houses the UF Health Neuromedicine
practice at the UF Health Neuromedicine
Hospital and the neuro-oncology
laboratories within UF’s Evelyn F. and
William L. McKnight Brain Institute will be
named in honor of Adam Michael Rosen.
Mitchell said they plan to reconvene
the ReMission Summit annually for the
next 10 years.
Thanks in large part to a philanthropic gift from Orlando hotel magnate Harris Rosen, brain cancer experts
from across the nation and beyond convened in Orlando in February at the inaugural ReMission Summit for Brain
Tumors. From left: neurosurgeon William A. Friedman, MD; ReMission Summit chair Anita Zucker; Rosen;
immunotherapy expert Duane Mitchell, MD, PhD; and UF President Kent Fuchs.
PHOTO BY AARON DAYE