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Celebrating the Life of Mary Halinski
In honor of my late wife of 32 years, Mary M. Halinski, a new pancreatic cancer research fund has been established at Jefferson. Mary always had a love of science and learning, and she was a kind and generous spirit, so having a research fund in her name is truly a meaningful way to celebrate Mary’s life.
Mary believed in Jefferson. She held her physicians, Drs. Edith Mitchell and Harish Lavu, in the highest regard. Mary considered many of her Jefferson physicians and caregivers to be her friends. She even wrote letters to personally thank them for all they did for her. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to work with Jefferson on the creation of this fund – the care and compassion Mary received. In fact, Mary called oncology nurse Cheryl Santosusso her angel. She really appreciated the nurses and all they do; she admired how much they help people.
Mary did not have any of the known risk factors for pancreatic cancer. Hopefully, through more research, we can start to answer questions about this disease.
In addition to supporting the work of Dr. Lavu, the fund was designed to provide seed money for investigators in pancreatic cancer research to explore exciting new projects and test hypotheses, with the hopes of generating results that would then warrant application for larger NIH sponsored grants.
Contributions to the Mary Halinski Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund at Jefferson have already begun to make an impact. Thanks to support from the Fund, Jefferson’s pancreatic cancer researcher team published promising new findings in the scientific journal Oncotarget. Read about it by clicking here.
- Bob Halinski