The Scleroderma Research Foundation Monthly eNewsletter

eNews: October Edition

Honoring Caroline Hirsch with the Bob Saget Legacy Award at Cool Comedy • Hot Cuisine

Nearly 20 years after first joining forces with the New York Comedy Festival, we are honored to be collaborating once again. This year, Cool Comedy • Hot Cuisine, a Tribute to Bob Saget, returns to New York City. This special evening will celebrate Bob and honor the NYCF's founder, Caroline Hirsch, as the first-ever recipient of the Bob Saget Legacy Award (pictured with Bob above at the 2004 event.) 

Thanks to Caroline's generosity, the SRF was able to host CCHC in New York at Carolines on Broadway ever since then. Caroline and Bob worked together to attract top talent from across comedy and music. Through laughter and great food, this event has touched many lives over the years and is crucial to the success of raising funds for research and awareness about #scleroderma.

This year's Cool Comedy • Hot Cuisine features the talents of Michael Che, Nikki Glaser, Jeff Ross (who is also hosting), and Adam Duritz & David Immerglück of the Counting Crows.

Learn more about how Cool Comedy • Hot Cuisine plays a significant role in funding the most promising research to end scleroderma

Tickets for this year's event are now waiting-list only. To inquire, contact Kate Ceredona, SRF Director of Philanthropy, at [email protected]

Big news! Boehringer Ingelheim, a leading research-driven biopharmaceutical company, will contribute an experimental agent to CONQUEST. CONQUEST is a highly innovative platform clinical trial that we created and announced earlier this year.

Boehringer Ingelheim is the second company to join CONQUEST; the platform’s inaugural partner, Sanofi, was announced in August of this year. The platform is specifically designed to efficiently advance promising treatments for scleroderma and to nominate agents that should progress from Phase 2b to Phase 3 clinical trials.

Golfing for a Cure

On August 21 Brian Elfus, sports agent and founder/CEO of Elfus Sports Management, held the second annual Elfus Sports Management Foundation Charity Golf Tournament, attracting 100 golfers and raising $10,000 for scleroderma research!

This year, the ESM Foundation once again donated proceeds to organizations that advance research for the incurable diseases that have personally affected Brian's family—the Scleroderma Research Foundation and the Fibromuscular Dysplasia Society of America.

Brian's wife, Lori, was diagnosed with Fibromuscular Dysplasia in 2019 and his mother, Roberta Elfus, passed away due to complications from scleroderma shortly after last year's inaugural tournament. At this year's event, Brian honored the memory of his mother, who lived with the disease for over 26 years.

We are so grateful to the ESM Foundation and the Elfus Family who are resolute in their dedication to raising funds towards a cure. Their help allows us to keep research at the center of all we do.

Pictured: Kate Ceredona, SRF Director of Philanthropy (left) with Lori, Brian, and Sami Elfus.

Remembering Our Founder, Sharon Monsky

October 23rd marked what would have been the 70th birthday of Sharon Monsky, the SRF's Founder. When Sharon first opened the doors of the SRF, she knew that curing scleroderma was not likely in her lifetime. But she also understood that funding medical research was the best hope for finding a cure and so the best hope for those living with the disease.

For Sharon's family and friends, it’s no surprise that her passion, commitment, and ability to drive people to action resulted in the SRF becoming the leading nonprofit funder of scleroderma research in the US. She wholeheartedly believed research was the key—and today, research remains at the center of everything we do at SRF.

Learn more about how Sharon's vision lives on through our daily work. We can't and won't stop until we find a cure for scleroderma.

Research is at the center of all we do to find a cure.

Ways to Support Research

Employer Matching / Planned Giving