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My dear friend Brenda, is Emily’s Aunt, and is running the Marathon relay for the first time this year on our team! Please help us support childhood cancer research and donate to our team!

Emily's Story

Emily Whitehead was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in May 2010 when she was five years old.

Typically, children diagnosed with this type of leukemia have an 85% to 90% chance of being cured; however, she relapsed twice. The leukemia became resistant to treatment and her doctors exhausted all treatment options. They recommended hospice care and expected her to live for only a few more weeks.

Emily’s parents, Tom and Kari, were not willing to give up. They heard about an experimental treatment, called CAR T-cell therapy, that was available as a Phase I clinical trial at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). In April 2012, they enrolled Emily in the clinical trial, and she was the first pediatric patient in the world to receive CAR T-cell therapy. The process involved collecting her T-cells (a type of white blood cell), genetically reprogramming them to recognize and attack cancer cells, and infusing the modified cells back into Emily’s blood. The treatment was highly experimental, but it was Emily’s only chance for a cure. Incredibly, the T-cell therapy worked, and Emily has remained cancer-free.

Emily’s treatment gained worldwide attention, and her story has been featured in The New York Times and Ken Burns’ PBS documentary Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies. A 3-minute documentary about her treatment, called Fire with Fire, was created by Oscar-winning director Ross Kauffman. Recently, the Whitehead’s published a book about their journey called Praying for Emily: The Faith, Science, and Miracles that Saved Our Daughter. A full-length documentary, called Of Medicine and Miracles, premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. 

Race Team - Stacy Beining, Breanda Cioccio, Stephanie Modar, Jessica Scott, Michelle Scott