Spring/Summer 2025

They reflect our unique personalities, our aspirations and dreams for ourselves, families and friends. And certainly, the answers will change over time, not just in nuance but in substance and impact. And yet, perhaps there may be a common thread. Perhaps there is something that we all feel, treasure and value. Something that gives us confidence in facing obstacles and challenges, in looking at the future with less apprehension and more hope.

I suspect that something is our health.

Without that, the world around us and inside us changes, becomes a place of disordered thoughts, an emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs, a place of anxiety. And sometimes, a place of fear.

For the past 130 years, The Wistar Institute has been about human health. Not one patient at a time. Not one disease at a time. Instead, Wistar stands for generational health, where science and discovery can heal not just one, but a million. Where knowledge is not abstract or exoteric but tangible and lifesaving. Where collaborations and partnerships enrich and engross the journey, challenge us to push the boundaries even further, and all to make life a safer, longer and healthier place for all. Those principles live on with us. They inspire us and guide us.

If anything, they are now stronger than ever.

As we prepare to renew our status as a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center, we can only be inspired that in the last five years, Wistar has advanced its homegrown discoveries to four — four, — investigator-initiated, first-in-human oncology clinical trials. For a place like Wistar, which is not part of a hospital or health system, having one trial would be exceptional.

Having four is simply unheard of. And yet, this is our norm, our routine, what we have become accustomed to. Where there does not seem to be a hurdle that we cannot overcome, a challenge that we cannot conquer, and a milestone that we cannot reach. Where over 70% of our funding and 90% of our publications are the product of collaboration, where the next generation of scientific leaders is forged, and where career opportunities are created for all, regardless of academic degree or no academic degree.