This was supposed to be a 61st birthday celebration for my sister Lisa (“Xena the Warrior Princess”) – ten and a half miles with a 6,000-foot climb to the summit of Mt. Whitney, at 14,495 feet the highest mountain in the contiguous states, and ten and a half miles back down – but tragedy struck in March when Lisa was diagnosed with cancer. One day she was at a spin class and a week later she was facing chemotherapy and surgery.  To date, Lisa has had eight rounds of aggressive chemotherapy with four more still to come and surgery to follow. Her duodenal cancer is similar to pancreatic cancer in that the chemotherapy regimen and surgery are the same – moreover, research findings on one are directly translatable to the other – so as I sit here contemplating Mt. Whitney, I have decided to dedicate my climb to Lisa and raise money for the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.  Pancreatic cancer is growing out of control, with new cases in the US up 80.6% in the last 15 years, and the Hirshberg Foundation is one of the few organizations doing anything about it. The foundation has long provided information and support to patients and families battling the disease (since 1997) but in 2005, the foundation began a seed grant program to spur the pace of research. Only research will change the needle on pancreatic cancer and far too little of it was being done.  The foundation has funded 78 pancreatic cancer seed grants since 2005, including 39 in the last four years.  Still, in those same four years, they have had to turn away more than a hundred other applicants, all with novel ideas on how to tackle the disease, so just think of all the research that isn't being done. That said, I hope you will support me in this cause.