About the Foundation

The Lisa B. Fishman Foundation was created soon after Lisa’s death and provides research funds to improve cancer treatment for people fighting Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

In 2007, the Foundation established a partnership with Dr. Andre Goy, Chairman and Director of the John Theurer Cancer Center and the Chief of the Division of Lymphoma at Hackensack University Medical Center. Dr. Goy and his team use Foundation funds to explore new, cutting-edge treatments in personalized medicine.

Thanks to this research, we can now predict when patients diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) will not respond well to traditional chemotherapy treatments. The researchers accomplished this by studying the molecular profile of HL patients to identify genomic characteristics that are consistently present in those patients with poor outcomes. This gives the doctors the knowledge needed to recommend the best alternate treatment specifically for that patient which in turn will give them a higher chance for a better outcome.

In addition to conducting innovative research and clinical trials, Dr. Goy is deeply committed to providing patients with a supportive environment. To this end he contributed to the design of the new cancer center building, which offers a wealth of amenities and is intended to be an oasis for patients, and he instituted an enormously popular annual celebration for cancer survivors, which drew nearly 5,000 attendees in 2013. He has been chosen as one of America’s top doctors for the past five years for his outstanding care.

Dr. Goy affirms that Lisa Fishman’s legacy comes at a truly momentous time in cancer research: he expects treatments to change more in the next 10 to 15 years than they have in the past century. He further notes that Hodgkin’s lymphoma itself has been an example of these changes over time: the first description of a lymphoma occurred in 1832 in London and the first treatment with radiation took place in the early 1900s. The first refined staging was developed by Dr. Henry Kaplan in the late 1950s and the first chemotherapy with MOPP took place in the early 1960s. More recently Hodgkin’s lymphoma was one of the first diseases in oncology with de-escalation of therapy (to reduce long-term side effects). Finally, there are very promising new results with antibody drug conjugates that will likely change the paradigm again.

The Lisa B. Fishman Foundation plans to continue its relationship with Dr. Goy indefinitely.