International Spirit of Life Foundation

Ann Simone selected the Spirit of Life statue, originally sculpted by Daniel Chester French, as the symbol for the organization. Simone says the statue embodies the vision, passion and courage his Foundation hopes to ignite in all cancer patients, their families and caregivers.

American entrepreneur Joseph R. Simone is accustomed to overcoming obstacles to his success. Founder and principal of Saratoga Food Group, a restaurant development company, Simone is particularly adept at developing and negotiating business deals for franchise and investor growth, and at spurring economic development and reform. Since being touched by cancer, Simone has turned that business acumen to a humanitarian purpose. If he has his way, as he has had in the business world, cancer’s days are numbered as he pushes to raise public awareness, to support research initiatives, and to gather the missing clues from around the world that would enable scientists to better understand why some people get cancer and others do not.

The bottom line in Simone’s business plan to fight cancer is to support the development of a cancer vaccine within the next three to five years. “We understand the basic causes,” he says, “having identified 1,000 causes of 100 cancers. We know what drives cancer cells, how it spreads to other parts of the body, and in the small fraction of inherited cancers, how it is genetically passed on. We are learning more about cancer at the cellular level, learning more about better targeting of cellular markers of cancer in diagnosis and treatment. What we don’t know yet is how to put the puzzle together. I’m reminded of the scientist who linked the discovery of rubber to the manufacture of tires; the tires didn’t grow on the trees. The same thing holds true with cancer. We’re not there yet. The hope is that we can fast-track this, to accumulate more information, more quickly, from a greater and broader population base, on an international level.”

Simone, a two-time cancer survivor himself, works through the International Spirit of Life Foundation, an organization he and his wife, Merium Ann Simone, founded in 1999, two years before she was diagnosed with a rare and fatal liver cancer. His three-year-old grandson, Justin, has leukemia, and already has spent half his life in a hospital. After 15 years of dealing with cancer on a personal front, Simone is losing patience, but certainly not resolve. Along with his memory of wife Ann’s courageous battle with cancer, he carries an impassioned drive to accelerate the pace to overcome cancer; to prevent, to stabilize and eventually to cure cancer. And he knows he can’t do it alone. He finds strength for his resolve in the story of Ann’s battle against cancer; a fight that paved the way for other, more successful outcomes. Yet, he says, had the liver cancer research being conducted at the time by Bayard Corp. in Europe been accelerated by as little as three months, his wife’s cancer might have been stabilized. “Ann was the first woman to receive a stem-cell transplant for solid tumors,” Simone recalls. “Doctors at the National Cancer Institute used stem cells donated by her brother James. It was a very daunting protocol with a lot of possible outcomes. Her passion and dedication to the cause of fighting cancer grew stronger as she battled the disease. She often expressed gratitude to her doctors for the privilege of participating in this new, uncertain protocol, as well as concern for others. In Ann’s case the treatment was actually shrinking the tumor. But the stem cells were so overpowering that they attacked her system too, and she died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on August 23, 2001, one month before the Foundation’s third International Spirit of Life Awards Celebration.” Her message, her commitment, her unselfish outlook live on, he says, as the International Spirit of Life Foundation ignites a global response to cancer.

Merium Ann Simone

The Washington DC-based organization is dedicated to kindling collaborative efforts to advance the prevention, treatment and management of cancer. The Foundation works in partnership with Washington Cancer Institute, a leading cancer center in the United States, to accelerate and heighten awareness of the disease and to foster a global exchange of information.

With the launching its first International Oncology Research Symposium this April, the Foundation seeks to provide participants with opportunities to share information about new models of clinical cancer care and prevention, and to grasp the powerful potential of a proposed web-based global information exchange program. INCTR and the International Spirit of Life Foundation are involved in efforts to develop the global portal for quicker assess to information, ongoing trials and treatments. Endeavoring to raise cancer awareness, each year the Foundation recognizes and celebrates the international achievements of those who make extraordinary contributions to the field of cancer.

Awards are given for distinguished service, cancer research, clinical care, philanthropy and advocacy. Among those recognized at the September 2003 celebration were former U.S. President George Bush and wife Barbara, Dr Elmer Huerta, an oncologist at the Washington Cancer Institute, and Dr Richard Klausner, former Director of NCI who is now Executive Director for Global Health at the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation.

In accepting the award, Klausner remarked: “The Spirit of Life Award represents incredible optimism that the improbable can become possible, and that the impossible can become real.” Simone remains undaunted in the face of sobering predictions that the global incidence of cancer could double in the next 15 years, precipitating an economic calamity of staggering proportions. “For groups like us, we need to carry the message that time is of the essence. With genetic predispositions and environmental causes, we are seeing younger people with cancer. It’s getting way out of control. Still I’m convinced the answer is out there, not in laboratories here in Washington but around the world.”

Marcia Landskroener for INCTR