The Lankenau Institute for Medical Research is a world-class medical research center nationally recognized for both basic and clinical research, located in suburban Philadelphia, PA.  The Institute is a separate non-profit corporation with its own exemption from taxation under Section 501 © (3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The Institute’s research programs focus on improving human health through basic research on chronic diseases affecting older people, including cancer.  A major effort of the Institute is to identify those genes that modify susceptibility to disease and to understand how such genes interact with environmental exposures and lifestyle factors to determine an individual’s disease risk.

The medical research center is staffed with scientists who are now at the cutting edge of discovering basic mechanisms that cause aging and learning how to alter the process.  This research is also leading to uncovering the secrets of why individuals get certain diseases, such as cancer, and initial scientific breakthroughs have shown how manipulating or changing certain basic cell structure and genetic profiling could lead to new treatments or cures.

In the area of breast cancer research, the Institute has been focusing on three areas:

Early diagnosis and detection
Tumor reduction
Treatment alternatives

Donations received with go directly toward research.  Unlike many organizations, your donations won’t pay for overhead expenses, as it may for the larger charity’s such as the American Cancer Society, it will go directly towards staffing scientists, assistants and technology development.