In addition to keeping his eyes on the road, David Barbie, MD, of Dana-Farber will be on the lookout for something else very important while pedaling 192 miles across the state in the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) on August 6 and 7: his patient Sue Cocco.
Cocco, a non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survivor, will be waiting along the PMC route in Attleboro with a sign thanking the doctor whom she calls “my hero.” The PMC is an annual bike-a-thon that is both the nation’s largest single athletic fundraiser and Dana-Farber’s largest single contributor. Barbie knows Cocco and many of his other patients treated in Dana-Farber’s Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology are thriving thanks to research breakthroughs aided by funds generated from the event.
This recognition, as much as his training, makes the hills from Sturbridge to Provincetown seem much easier to climb.
“That’s what we’re riding for — more options for all our patients,” says Barbie, who runs his own lab and is also associate director of the Robert and Renée Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at Dana-Farber. Barbie notes that Cocco has been on the same targeted oral drug, Alectinib, for nearly five years. “Several other chemotherapy options were ineffective on her tumor, but within three weeks of her switching to this next-generation drug, her cancer was under control.”
Alectinib is similar to other newer, more targeted cancer therapies being studied in Barbie’s laboratory; a major focus of the lab’s research, a human immune signaling pathway known as cGAS-STING which can sense abnormalities linked to cancer and infection, is the inspiration behind Barbie’s PMC team: Team STINGing Cancer.
Camaraderie and compassion
It is not only his patients, however, that inspire Barbie’s PMC participation.
His uncle Jim died of colon cancer — prompting Barbie to pursue a career as an oncologist — as did a close high school friend treated at Dana-Farber. Both will be on Barbie’s mind when he and other riders take off from Sturbridge early on August 6.
“The camaraderie is what I like most,” says Barbie. “When you get out to Sturbridge, Mass., and see all the other riders, that’s when you really start to feel it. It’s amazing to watch the sun rising when you head out the first morning, and to see so many people along the route. Then, right when you’re beginning to cramp up, you get to Mile 70 and see the posted pictures of pediatric patients. That brings home the emotional power and spirit of the cause.”
Barbie, also a principal investigator of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center’s lung cancer Specialized Program in Research Excellence (SPORE), is one of 86 Dana-Farber staff members or faculty riding in PMC 2022; another 52 are signed up as volunteers. All told, 6,300 riders from 43 states and 8 countries plan to traverse one of 16 one- and two-day routes — which range from 25 to 211 miles. A volunteer corps 3,000 strong will aid them before, during, and after the event.
Since its 1980 inception, the PMC has raised $831 million for research and patient care at Dana-Farber. The fundraising goal for the 2022 ride is $66 million, with 100% of every rider-raised dollar going to Dana-Farber.
Filled with gratitude
Many cancer survivors are among each year’s riders, and this is how Sue Cocco first became involved. Her boyfriend’s Bill Gould’s daughter, Cori Newcomb, is a thyroid cancer survivor who rode in her first PMC in 2009 to celebrate being five years cancer-free. She’s ridden every August since, with her dad and Cocco cheering her on with a sign and cowbell at several stops along the route.
This ritual took on added importance when Cocco received her lung cancer diagnosis in January 2016. Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy came next, but Cocco was out there for Newcomb as usual in August.
“I was almost in tears,” Cocco recalls. “I was so full of gratitude for these people, and amazed at how much they all care for us.”
Cocco feels the same about Barbie, whom she praises for his compassion and empathy. That’s why she now cheers him on during PMC weekend as well.