Media Kit

The Cancer Couch Foundation Media Kit

Founder – Rebecca Timlin-Scalera, PhD

Dr. Rebecca Timlin-Scalera, Founder & Executive Director of The Cancer Couch is also a wife, mother, Neuropsychologist, writer, and lifelong athlete (Division 1 College Soccer Player). She was living a full, healthy life when she was completely blindsided by an advanced breast cancer diagnosis in September 2015 and told she might have just 3 years to live. She has no family history, performed regular self-exams, as well as receiving annual mammograms and ultrasounds for dense breasts.

“One of the most difficult days of my life was the day I found out I had breast cancer. My life changed forever. Initially told it had already spread to my bones and was at Stage 4, metastatic breast cancer, I found out the prognosis was 3 years. Time stood still while I wrestled with this gut-wrenching news.”

Weeks later, Rebecca experienced a miracle. Her bone biopsy came back negative – with no evidence of cancer. It had not yet spread to the bones, and she was upgraded to Stage 3C and given “a chance for a cure.” Suddenly, instead of being devastated by having Stage 3C cancer, she was brought to her knees in tears of gratitude that it was not Stage 4…and thus began her education on the huge (life and death) difference between early and late stage, or metastatic breast cancer – and the dire need for more funding for metastatic breast cancer- which is the basis for this foundation.” Learn more by watching our 2 Minute Foundation Video and/or our 7 Minute Blog/Foundation Video with an exciting sizzle reel to see how we got started and what we are all about. Unfortunately, Rebecca became one of the 30% of early stage patients whose cancer does metastasize to stage 4. Just 2 years later in September 2017 she learned her cancer had spread and was now metastatic.

Rebecca also started writing a blog about her experiences going from once side of the couch to the other in the matter of a day. This experience, has given her a whole new perspective on life – and she writes about it from a place of humor and gratitude, but mostly honesty.

The Cancer Couch Foundation is a volunteer run, privately funded, non-profit organization. 100% of donations and event proceeds are matched and go straight to the cutting edge research we fund! Please support The Cancer Couch Foundation in our mission to accelerate treatment, and someday find a cure, for metastatic breast cancer.

Mission

To fund cutting edge scientists at world class cancer centers, exclusively focused on impactful research that will accelerate life-saving treatments for metastatic breast cancer (mbc) – as quickly as possible. To continue raising awareness of the impact of mbc through blog posts and putting names, faces and stories to the stats of this incurable disease.

Goals

To make metastatic breast cancer a chronic, manageable disease in our lifetime.
To raise awareness of the real facts about breast cancer:
- In the US alone >41,000 people die from mbc each year.
- 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in their lifetime.
- Men can get breast cancer too.
- Although 30% of those diagnosed with early stage breast cancer (Stages 1-3) will eventually develop metastatic breast cancer, and be re-staged to Stage 4, very little of breast cancer research funds (<7%) go to study this stage of the disease, the one that kills you.
- There are more and more treatments coming available for mbc, however, the average prognosis remains at 3 years.
- A woman dies of mbc every 13 minutes.
- Many breast cancer patients do not realize their breast cancer can metastasize even decades after initial diagnosis.

Progress

In just the first 6 months of inception, The Cancer Couch Foundation garnered amazing support from around the world and was able to put over $500,000 directly to mbc research at two of the world’s top rated cancer centers. In our second year, along with support from the MBC collective we were able to put 1.2 million dollars into MBC at our two cutting edge labs and we have now put over 2 million into these labs in less than three years! Who we fund:

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC
We are proud to fund Dr. Nikhil Wagle at Dana-Farber on his studies of Immunoprofiling of ER+ Metastatic Breast Cancer as well as the role of HER2 and triple negative mutations in original ER+ Metastatic Breast Cancer.
Dr. Sarat Chandarlapaty and his studies on CDK4/6 Inhibitors and tumor resistance to combination therapies.

In addition, we were able to fund three Angel funds for patients with mbc in financial need in 2018. We hope to set up many more Angel funds across the country this year! In every community that fundraises for The Cancer Couch, we donate a portion of the proceeds raised there back to that community in the name of a local mbc patient:

The Beth Calabotta Fund for Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients at Genesis Foundation in Illinois: $1000 in 2018.
The Beth Davis Fund for Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients at the Norma Pfriem Breast Cancer Center in Fairfield, CT: $1300
The Heidi Armitage Fund for Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, CT: $1300 in 2018

We have developed partnerships to strengthen our reach, message, and marketing power, Tigerlily, Hope Scarves, Twisted Pink, and Bake It Happen Foundations.

Plans

To continue to raise money through on-line and mail-in donations, through events and sponsors, and we will continue to host the annual (sold-out two years in a row!) The Cancer Beat concert every fall is our signature fundraising event.

To maintain a “lean” administrative profile which separates us from larger organizations in that we have zero overhead costs, and can be nimble and efficient in executing our mission, and giving our donors a more direct connection to the research.
To continue identifying and funding only the most cutting edge scientists and impactful studies in the field of mbc by remaining immersed in the mbc community via social media, research, relationships, and careful vetting through our medical advisor and patient advocates to maintain a well-rounded research “portfolio.”

To ensure there is no redundancy amongst the studies we fund, a mandate of our funding is that our researchers are collaborating with each other across institutions.

To continue creating Angel funds. When a community fundraises for The Cancer Couch, we give 10% back to the local cancer center in honor of an mbc patient to help those with mbc in financial need.

We also plan to update readers and donors every year on the progress of the research we are funding, and remain completely transparent with our financial statements so you can see exactly where the money goes and when.