Perhaps it is his kind disposition and infectious smile, but animals have always known that they had a protector and loving friend in Ken Wesolowski. After meeting him, it isn’t hard to understand why such a kind man, who loves and is loved by animals, would be loved and cared for so fiercely by his family.

Ken survived lung cancer but has Alzheimer's disease, and while he does not remember his cancer, nothing has diminished his love for his family—or his animals. And his family has become his memory.

“We met 51 years ago. I looked at him and he looked at me. That was it,” Ken’s wife Joan said. “I knew I had to get her,” Ken interjected.

A True Renaissance Man

Ken was born with a thirst for adventure that led to travel and careers in engineering and as an art dealer. But a consummate family man, his heart was always at home. The kind of dad who taught his daughter to catch garden snakes and remove ticks from the heads of field mice, he instilled a love for animals that continues to his grandchildren.

While at the Abramson Cancer Center, Ken received chemotherapy and daily radiation therapy under the care of William Levin, MD, Medical Director of the Penn Radiation Oncology Network Clinical Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and Tracey Evans, MD, but they also sought out Abramson Cancer Center nutritionist Katrina Claghorn, MS, RD, CSO, LDN, who worked with the family to create an individualized nutrition plan for Ken.

“We were so happy at Penn, with the care he received,” Joan said. “I know it sounds crazy, but I loved it there and miss going every day! The people, from the nurses to Katrina to Drs. Levine and Evans, all made us feel like Ken was the most important patient in the whole world. We love all of them.”

The cancer journey is fraught with stress and uncertainty, and animals often provide a much needed emotional lift and outlet. The Roberts Proton Therapy Center at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center has a Radiation Oncology Dog Therapy Program, which takes place in the waiting room every Tuesday, and brings calm and solace to ACC patients. Studies have shown that the simple act of petting a dog can lower blood pressure and heart rate—read about Penn Medicine’s therapy dog Finn here. But the Wesolowski’s were lucky to have their own special animal healing program at home—with their goats, dog, and any other wild animal that happened upon their house’s barn.

“He would carry the dog down to the barn to feed and visit with the goats every day, giving them carrots, saltines, and only the best hay available,” his daughter Lori recalled.

Home is Where the Heart Is

“When someone is sick, you have to be their voice. My whole family rallied around mom and dad. Mom took care of him, we took care of my mom, and he took care of his goats. We advocated for him to get a feeding tube when his dehydration and weight was becoming a concern, and learned ways to keep his weight up from Katrina, the nutritionist,” said Lori.

Ken’s radiation therapy took place two years ago, when the Polar Vortex wrapped Philadelphia in bitter cold, and Joan and Lori slept in the hospital so they wouldn’t miss a treatment.

“We never left his side, just kept rotating because we weren’t going to leave him alone, not for a minute,” explained Lori.

Ken never met a stranger and was always the most popular man on any dance floor, and a true partner and kindred spirit, Joan Wesolowski’s good humor and zest for life is also infectious.

“Our mom is so loving and giving and she runs circles around me and my sister, always planning outings and making Sunday dinner for the whole family. She even had a way of making sleeping in a hospital room a blast,” said Lori.

While they worked to keep laughing in the face of a terrible ordeal, Ken got well.

“He would be in bed all curled up sick as a dog but still asking about his goats and would look at us and say, ‘isn’t this fun?’ with that beautiful smile of his, ” recalled Lori.

Has an animal or pet played a special role in your cancer treatments? Share your story by contacting Fern Neibauer Cohen at Fern.Nibauer-Cohen@uphs.upenn.edu or (215) 662-3919. Learn more about the pet therapy program by contacting Christina Bach, MBE, MSW, LCSW, OSW-C at christina.bach@uphs.upenn.edu or (267) 438-2417.

“If we wanted to have the greatest impact on worldwide cancer mortality, more than any other intervention, we would bring what we currently have available in this country to people around the world who don’t have access to it.”– Larry Shulman, MD, Deputy Director for Clinical Services, ACC, and Director of the Center for Global Cancer Medicine

At the Abramson Cancer Center, our reach goes far beyond the Philadelphia community and far beyond our national partners—several programs are impacting lives globally. On a day such as World Cancer Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness and education about the disease, pressing governments and individuals across the world to take action—we are especially proud to be making a global impact.

Penn’s Roberts Proton Therapy Center 

Through the leadership of James Metz, MD, the Roberts Proton Therapy Center has become the largest integrated proton center in the world, and also includes a Global Training Program dedicated to educating and training emerging leaders in the field. Last year, over 100 representatives from over 21 countries participated in the 2nd Annual Course on Proton Therapy, which trains physicians and specialists on the applications of proton therapy with onsite clinical observations and engagement.

Cancer survivor Bill Barbour who was treated at the Roberts Proton Therapy Center in 2012, shares his sense of pride at having access to a Center right in his own backyard that people around the world travel thousands of miles to for access to treatments and training opportunities. “There are two major missions of the Roberts Proton Therapy Center: healing and preserving life—that’s my story, the local story—but Penn is much bigger than me. Penn will touch lives world-wide through educating and training.”

Patients are coming to the Center from all over the world—this past year, 23 international patients received proton therapy at the Roberts Center. Our patients appreciate the ability to continue their extraordinary lives throughout their cancer treatment. Bill truly appreciates his quality of life both during and after treatment. “I am an avid cyclist and I didn’t want to be off my bike. My oncologist said I could continue to ride as long as I was comfortable. I found a family to stay with in Center City and I rode my bike to and from proton treatment. I went from worrying about if I could ride post-treatment, to being able to ride throughout it, back and forth to the Roberts Proton Therapy Center. I’m still friends with my host family today.”

OncoLink Travels to Tanzania 

Nurses are the front line, interacting with patients every day. Penn’s OncoLink team was presenting at an international conference when nurses from a small country in Africa approached them for help. Their request was simple—they wanted to learn how to take better care of their patients with cancer. The dedicated nurses of the Ocean Road Cancer Institute, Tanzania’s only cancer hospital, began a conversation that has resulted in a model educational program that is changing cancer care in Tanzania. Led by James Metz, MD, and Maggie Hampshire, RN, OCN, Director of Strategic Partnerships - OncoLink, Penn physicians and nurses developed a customized curriculum to cover general topics in oncology and specialized training in radiation therapy.

Botswana…and Beyond 

Launched in 2001, the Botswana/UPenn Partnership (BUP) has helped build capacity in healthcare in Botswana for the last 15 years. This partnership was originally formed to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but now has expanded to provide high-quality medical care and explore collaborations in other areas of development such as women’s health and cancer. In 2009, the BUP Women’s Health Program was established, focusing on needs such as cervical cancer prevention and head and neck cancer treatments. The program provides services for HIV-infected women using visual inspection with digital imaging, treatment of precancerous cervical lesions, and technical assistance to the Ministry of Health for other women’s health issues, including HPV vaccination.

According to the American Cancer Society, cancer survival rates are much poorer in Africa than in the developed world for most cancer types, especially those affected by screening and improved treatment. For example, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer is less than 50% in Gambia, Uganda, and Algeria, compared to more than 80% in the United States. In addition to being diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease, which limits treatment options, cancer patients in most parts of Africa have limited or no access to timely standard treatment— surgery, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiation—further diminishing their chance of survival. Surbhi Grover, MD, has been in Botswana over the past year establishing multidisciplinary clinical and research programs to improve outcomes in Botswana. These types of programs are where Penn Medicine truly makes a global impact for those most in need.

With the recruitment of Larry Shulman, MD, Penn has been able to expand its cancer programs to also include Haiti and Rwanda. These national cancer programs not only offer life-saving detection and treatment services to the communities they serve, but also offer opportunities for our students, residents, and faculty to explore learning that make them more well-rounded physicians, as well as explore career and research opportunities that help improve the diversity and validity of our findings.

Philanthropy is key to ensuring these life-saving programs continue. To learn more about ways to support global cancer initiatives, please contact Michal Greenberg at michalg@upenn.edu or (215) 573-2480.

Tom and Alison on their wedding day.

A Comprehensive and Coordinated Care Team 

Tom ‘ringing the bell’ after completing his proton therapy. From left to right: Alison’s brother Wade Stem, dad Craig Stem, and other brother Michael Stem, Tom, Alison, and her cousin JD Stem.

Access is powerful medicine 

Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) has emerged as an international epicenter for precision medicine, accelerating the progress of cancer research and care through an integrated, collaborative care system.

The ACC’s leadership in precision medicine began over 50 years ago when the first genetic abnormality of cancer, the Philadelphia chromosome, was co-discovered by University of Pennsylvania pathologist Peter C. Nowell, MD.

The foundation for the ACC’s collaborative efforts in precision medicine is the Center for Personalized Diagnostics (CPD)— established in the same lab where the Philadelphia chromosome was discovered. Led by founding director and inaugural Peter C. Nowell, MD, Professor Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson, MD, the CPD uncovers genetic mutations specific to an individual tumor. This information allows oncologists to treat patients with drugs that have demonstrated success targeting their particular genetic mutations.

Since launching in 2013, Penn’s Center for Personalized Diagnostics has performed more than 5,000 tests on patients with a wide range of cancers.

Penn Patients are at the Center of the Precision Medicine

Revolution Historically cancers have been treated based on their tumor of origin, but the knowledge that genetic mutations are shared across a multitude of cancers is changing that approach. In partnership with Penn’s CPD, the Center for Rare Cancer and Personalized Therapy has begun opening “basket trials” designed to group patients with rare mutations to drugs that have success targeting those particular genetic mutations, regardless of cancer type.

For many patients, this new approach gives hope after standard chemo and radiation treatments have failed. This was the case for Mr. Joseph Italiano when his salivary gland cancer returned a second time.

“At first, I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to go through it all again. It’s just a waste of time.’ But then I thought of my family, and my grandchildren, and changed my mind,” said Mr. Italiano.

Mr. Italiano’s medical oncologist, Lee Hartner, MD, had his rare tumor tested at the Center for Personalized Diagnostics, where an HRAS mutation was discovered. Penn’s Center for Rare Cancer and Personalized Therapy had an open clinical trial for tipifarnib, a drug that has had success in turning HRAS pathways off, preventing cancer growth. Mr. Italiano was enrolled in the trial, and is now doing well. “Penn helped me find a way to have more time with my family, when no one else could. I am so grateful for the level of research that’s happening, so that people like me who are facing cancer recurrence have options to keep fighting,” shared Mr. Italiano.

Marcia Brose, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Rare Cancers and Personalized Therapy explains, “By working hand in hand with the Center for Personalized Diagnostics, we are using precision medicine to find new targets such as a tumor associated mutations. This is allowing us to find new therapies to give to patients that have run out of standard treatment options . Already we have seen some remarkable responses that we haven’t seen before with traditional therapy.”

Watch an interview with Dr. Marcia Brose and patient Joseph Italiano, as they share more about the hope of the Center for Rare Cancers and Personalized Therapy.

Using the genetic information uncovered by the Center for Personalized Diagnostics to design treatment plans is the future. Just ask Steven Matthews, a Philadelphia resident who works with non-profits, and ACC patient.

After being diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, Mr. Matthew’s oncologist Anthony Mato, MD, suggested a clinical trial with two arms, the immunotherapy drug ibrutinib and standard chemotherapy. Preliminary genetic testing through the Center for Personalized Diagnostics showed that Mr. Matthews had a p53 mutation, indicating that standard chemotherapy would most likely be unsuccessful.

While he was ineligible for a trial, he was able to be put directly on ibrutinib in combination with rituximab, a monoclonal antibody that helps make cancer cells more visible to the immune system, so it can attack the cancer.

“Ibrutinib—which has been given a Breakthrough Therapy designation by the FDA—is a kinase inhibitor that regulates the growth of tumor blood vessels and tumor cell division. It is not chemotherapy, and instead manipulates the immune system to treat the cancer, giving patients an enhanced quality of life during treatment,” explained Dr. Mato.

While Mr. Matthews has had to structure his day-to-day life around treatment appointments, he did not have to miss a day of work. A remarkable feat considering he is being treated for cancer.


“I have seen family and friends suffer thorough chemo therapy and I am grateful to have been spared from those physical challenges. What is amazing, and at times surreal, is that my life is very normal. It is all manageable,” said Mr. Matthews.

Previously, ibrutinib had only been approved to treat patients after chemotherapy failure, but because of the ACC’s participation in the multi-center, phase III RESONATE study, this immunotherapy was recently approved by the FDA to act as a first line of defense—thereby sparing patients from ever having to undergo chemotherapy altogether.

Abramson Cancer Center: Launch Pad of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative

Last year when President Barack Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative the White House hosted Emily Whitehead—first pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia patient to receive Penn’s Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-Cell Therapy.

By removing patients’ T cells, the soldiers of the immune system, re-engineering them with the function to potentially destroy cancer, and infusing them back into the patient, the therapy harnesses the power of the immune system.

“This therapy is the ultimate in personalized, precision medicine, because it is a treatment that is derived from the patient’s own cells,” explained Abramson Cancer Center Director Chi V. Dang, MD, PhD.

Emily was near death when she received this treatment and now, more than four years later, she is still cancer-free.

In January of this year, Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center was proud to be chosen to host the White House’s launch of their Cancer Moonshot Initiative with a visit from Vice President Joseph Biden.

Biden toured the Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics, the first-of-its-kind research hub at Penn that will serve as the home of our personalized T cell therapy program, and met with top experts in immunotherapy, cancer prevention, surgery, and genomics.

“A large component of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative is using human genomics and big data to launch ‘a new era in medicine.’ And the Center for Personalized Diagnostics is already a part of the genomics and bioinformatics revolution at Penn. We have the technology and the expertise, and are fostering new, leading-edge research that has the potential to tremendously impact cancer prevention, early detection, and early intervention with precision therapies,” said CPD Director Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson, MD.

A week after hosting the launch of the Moonshot Initiative, Dr. Dang represented the Abramson Cancer Center at the first public forum on precision medicine:Cancer Precision Medicine, Big Ideas in Research, Treatment and Prevention.

“What the White House’s invitation, the Vice President’s visit, and this town hall made abundantly clear is that the Abramson Cancer Center is leading the charge in precision medicine because of our collaborative culture— across the nation, other institutions, and University of Pennsylvania Schools and Centers,” said Dr. Dang.

Unlocking cancer’s genetic secrets is the key to precision medicine, and by finding the genetic needle in the haystack, Penn’s effort is dramatically changing the courses of treatment and improving outcomes for patients with less toxicity —and stopping cancer in its tracks.

For more information on how to support these programs, please contact Kathleen Hertkor at (215) 573-0187 or khertkor@upenn.edu.

For information or appointments, please call (800) 789-PENN (7366).

“At some point in our lives, we are all affected by cancer—those battling the disease, those who survived, and the caregivers. We need to end this fight. I want to be a part of finding a cure, so I’m riding in the Breakthrough Bike Challenge to help impact cancer research.”
–Joe Schemmer, two-time cancer survivor

Early detection is key to the successful treatment of any cancer. With several friends and family members who have battled the disease, Joe Schemmer quickly arranged for cancer screenings when he developed a long lasting, aggressive cough. Unfortunately, Joe’s intuition was correct, and a subsequent nodule biopsy revealed lung cancer. He underwent therapy and remained in remission for two years, but in 2009, Joe had a recurrence.

Knowing he needed expert treatment, Joe sought out the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) for guidance. Always keeping the patient in mind, ACC physicians teamed up with Joe’s prior care team to come up with a personalized plan that ensured he would get the best possible treatment, but in the hands of his initial care team who Joe already knew so intimately.

Joe is now seven years cancer-free and he credits partnering with the Abramson Cancer Center for saving his life. The two-time cancer survivor is eager to support Penn Medicine by participating in the Breakthrough Bike Challenge—a bike ride that will support early career physician-scientists committed to eradicating cancer. “The physicians and staff at the Abramson Cancer Center were great to me and my family. When you are sick, timing is everything and the people at Penn were right there for me when I needed them. Now I’m ready to be there and support them,” Joe shared.

Joe knows the devastating loss cancer can bring, he lost his brother John to lung cancer in 2013. Joe’s brother Bill will be riding beside him as they embark upon a 30 mile course—promising to be both challenging and inspiring. The brothers are not avid cyclists, but with a little training and their passion to find a cure, the mileage will be no match for the duo. “I know riding 30 miles will not be easy, but it won’t be anything compared to what I, and so many others, went through when battling cancer. I’m riding in honor of cancer survivors, those who are currently fighting for their lives, and for those who have lost their battle—especially my brother John.”

Be a part of peddling towards breakthroughs in cancer research by joining Joe, Bill, and Abramson Cancer Center physicians, families, and friends on June 19th for the Breakthrough Bike Challenge in Birdsboro, Berks County, PA.