Our Impact
Examples of past research include specific nutrients and their effect on microRNA and the progression of cancer metastasis, the ability of exercise to change the biology of breast cancer in advanced-stage patients, and how mindset and comedy play a role in improving patient outcomes.
Nutrient Metabolism Research 2025
The Willow Foundation's 2025 grant recipient is Dr. Gary Patti of Washington University in St. Louis’ department of chemistry. With the Willow Foundation’s grant, Dr. Patti and his team seek to learn about the practice of intermittent fasting and its influence on tumor progression. A defining attribute of tumors is their unrestricted capacity for growth. To grow, tumors require nutrients. The Patti Lab is seeking to learn if restricting the input of nutrients into the body can limit tumor growth.
In other words, does restricting the time over which food is consumed affect the development of cancer?
Using a small number of cancer cells in the mammary fat pads of animals, researchers monitor the rate at which the tumors grow over time as the animals consume different diets.
Preliminary results show that intermittent fasting limits the growth of tumors significantly, but not in the late stages of disease. Once the tumors become "large" (5% of the animal’s body weight), intermittent fasting is not beneficial. To the contrary, at this stage, intermittent fasting makes tumors progress faster. This is a critical insight, and means that tumor metabolism is dynamic, changing with time throughout the disease process.
The Patti Lab will continue to explore more about fasting and tumor metabolism and hopes to use the data to support a human clinical trial in the future.
Nutrition Research
2023-2024
We funded the work of Dr. Urvi Shah of Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. Dr. Shah is evaluating whether healthier diets lead to an increased likelihood of achieving MRD (minimal residual disease) for multiple myeloma patients. More details about this ongoing study, including a nod to our funding, are included in the Journal of Leukemia.
You can learn more about Dr. Shah’s research by watching the video below.
Mindset Research
2021-2022
We collaborated with The Comedy Cures Foundation to study mindset and wellness coaching and their effect on outcomes for late-stage cancer patients. In 2022, stage 4 cancer patients were provided comprehensive wellness coaching to improve quality of life and outcomes. Results showed an improvement in perceived quality of life and coping skills, and study surveys showed exceptional feedback on this unique comprehensive care methodology. In fact, this new coaching model has gained national recognition, being replicated at multiple healthcare centers across the United States.
In 2021, we funded a study to evaluate emerging and compelling research that correlates lifestyle approaches during cancer treatment with an increased quality of life.
This unique study used a digital health solution informed by neuroscience and artificial intelligence which recommended mindset practices personalized for each participant to help decrease each participant’s perceived stress. The study showed significant improvements in mental health status: from a reduction in anxiety to increases in self-efficacy.
This study was accepted as an abstract at the Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, showcasing the use of mental health technology with comedy as a therapy for women living with advanced cancer. Review the full study findings here.
Exercise Research
2019-2020
We funded research projects at the Lee Jones Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY. Our researchers wondered: does exercise affect prognosis after a cancer diagnosis?
Nearly half of patients receiving first line therapy for hormone receptor (HR)‐positive metastatic breast cancer (MBC) do not respond to treatment, and virtually all develop treatment resistance. Low‐cost, effective treatments that can be administered with minimal toxicity are urgently required. Structured exercise is one such candidate approach. However, most exercise oncology studies to date have been conducted in early‐stage cancers to test the impact of exercise on symptom control outcomes (e.g., fatigue, pain). To develop exercise as an anticancer strategy, early phase studies are required to determine the appropriate exercise dose which could be used in further testing.
Dr. Jones and other researchers at MSK analyzed a large data set generated by tracking adults with cancer over many years. The team found that people diagnosed with cancer who regularly exercise reduced their risk of dying from all causes by 25% compared with people with cancer who did not exercise. The median survival time was increased by around five years in exercisers compared with non-exercisers.