A family legacy of hope
Born out of love and remembrance for a son and a brother, the Don Monti Memorial Research Foundation has impacted the lives of families for more than 40 years and is one of the longest running fundraising nonprofits on Long Island.
“My brother died in 1972, when he was only 16 years old; he had leukemia, ” explained Caroline Monti Saladino, Don Monti’s sister and President of the Monti Foundation. “He lived 15 months past his diagnosis. A week later, my parents started the Foundation.”
Raising more than $50 million, the Monti Foundation has served patients at Don Monti Cancer Centers throughout Northwell Health, supported cancer research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and funded an endowed chair scholarship for students at Long Island University’s Post campus.
Patient care and education has been a focus of the Foundation for many years, supporting multiple cancer programs. In 2006, the Monti Foundation was introduced to CSHL, and research became an integral component of the Foundation’s mission. Since then, the Foundation has given more than $6 million to CSHL’s cancer research, most recently supporting Assistant Professor Dr. Lingbo Zhang’s work on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare blood cancer that is related to a group of blood disorders, including myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).
In 2021, Edward Travaglianti, a good friend of the Saladino family and a former Treasurer of CSHL’s Board of Trustees, passed away from MDS.
“Ed and Arthur (Saladino) were best friends; our families are very close,” Caroline said. “So, when we learned about Dr. Zhang’s work, we knew we had to support it.”
Dr. Zhang combines basic science research, understanding the mechanisms of disease, with translational research, employing a clinical application. In the case of MDS, his lab has uncovered a mechanistic pathway and developed a pharmacological approach to treat this lethal blood cancer.
Dr. Zhang added, “Currently, we are working with a team of roughly 20 experts in the pharmaceutical industry – medicinal chemists, computational-aided drug design experts, and pharmacological experts – to develop a drug that can impact MDS.”
The research is in early stages and must go through preclinical and clinical testing, but data is promising. On a recent tour of Dr. Zhang’s laboratory, the Saladinos’ excitement for the research and passion for the cause was evident.
“We host a Survivor’s Day, and when you hear the stories directly from cancer survivors, there is a personal connection,” Saladino said. “Research is everything, because without that, we would be back to the dark ages with no answers. Research gives us hope.”
This story ran in the July issue of Stroll magazine in the following communities: Locust Valley, Oyster Bay, Upper Brookville and Lloyd Harbor.