David Bigelow was “one of the greatest gifts of my life,” says his daughter Cindi Bigelow, and her father’s final illness is the catalyst behind her own gift to further immunotherapy research at the Yale Cancer Center.
A strong altruistic sensibility has been a hallmark of the Bigelow family for the nearly 80 years it has owned and operated Fairfield-based Bigelow Tea. Recently, the generosity took the form of a $100,000 gift to Yale to study and find more effective approaches to the sometimes toxic side effects that result from effective immunotherapy treatment.
“It’s really about taking the loss of my father and seeing how we can help others have a better cancer treatment journey,” said Cindi Bigelow, CEO of Bigelow since 2005.
David Bigelow’s journey centered on family and shepherding the family business. In addition to expanding Bigelow into one of the world’s most well-known tea companies, he instilled a deep sense of personal responsibility in those around him with the tenet to ‘Think of others before self.’
Prior to the immunotherapy treatments, David’s life expectancy was just a few weeks, his daughter said. The immunotherapy was so effective that he was alive 16 months after his diagnosis, and it might have been longer had the treatment not been paused to ease treatment side effects.
Cindi Bigelow has nothing but praise for her father’s care team, especially medical oncologist and researcher Dr. Harriet Kluger, and the nursing team and staff at Smilow Cancer Hospital.
“When you are helping someone going through something as traumatic [as cancer treatment] …and who you love literally more than air, you want others to treat him with kid gloves and complete compassion and that’s what we got from the clinical teams at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center,” said Dr. Kluger, who is Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and of Dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine . ”And for that I’m very grateful.”
The gift is meant to help patients being treated today and in the future. It’s important to “lift all those around you” whether it’s a treatment room or a board room, she said. More research into the relatively new realms of immunotherapy could bring more specialists together to tackle issues including side effects, she said.
Cindi Bigelow’s gift will support research by Dr. Kluger on controlling immunotherapy side effects. She is poised to launch a study using medication to control some aspects of the “revved up” immune system without dampening its cancer-fighting effectiveness.
“Immune therapy activates immune cells indiscriminately, including some that cause inflammation in normal organs,” said Dr. Kluger, who also is director of the Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer program and vice chair for Collaborative Research, Internal Medicine. “We routinely use steroids to dampen the immune system, but it is critical to develop smarter ways to selectively inhibit the activity of immune cells that are damaging normal organs.”
“We are grateful for the partnership and generous support,” Dr. Kluger said. “Research is the most effective, nimble tool we have against all cancers and this type of philanthropy is critical to that mission.”