Seven years ago, a local child was the first person in the world to beat leukemia with a revolutionary new treatment. Now 13, she’s stepping out with a new effort to help other kids fight the same deadly disease.
Emily Whitehead from Philipsburg is the first child in the world to have her immune system trained to beat leukemia. She’s also the first child to be cured by this type of gene therapy
Ever since then, she and her parents through the Emily Whitehead Foundation, have been raising awareness of the treatment and research money to fight the cancer.
This year Emily’s taking a different step to help patients who may benefit from the new therapy.
She plans to run the 5K part of this year’s Pittsburgh Marathon in hopes of raising $5,000
Her father Tom says, “she set a goal that she wants to raise 5k to help more kids who normal cancer treatments aren’t working for, hopefully get the T-cell treatment that she pioneered.”
And Emily adds, “It’s really amazing that all of the money that we’re raising has gone to do such amazing things and help other kids like me get out of the hospital.”
The Emily Whitehead Foundation has raised $1 million since 2015 to fight cancer.
If you’d like to help out, go to Emily Whitehead Foundation Pittsburgh Marathon 2019.