Belle: Hope Is Her Superpower
Belle is 8, and her cancer keeps coming back. The treatments that could change her story, and the story of every child like her, need research funding now.
Eight-year-old Belle has been fighting cancer since 2021. That's years of her childhood spent facing what no child ever should.
Belle is pure sunshine. She is funny, kind, determined and almost always smiling. She finds a little light on the hardest days, and her hope makes everyone around her stronger. Hope is her superpower.
It started with a lump in her left leg and turned out to be alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer. Since then, Belle has endured chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, hospital stays and more uncertainty than any child should have to understand.
When the cancer returned in her leg, Belle had rotationplasty, a life-changing surgery that let her be fitted with a prosthetic leg. She had to learn to walk all over again.
So she did. Then she learned to run. And swim, ski, surf, dance and do gymnastics. She even walked the runway at New York Fashion Week.
In 2025, the cancer came back in her arm, bringing more chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Now, in 2026, doctors have found another mass in her abdomen.
When her family told her the cancer was back, Belle said:
"I think I know why it keeps coming back... because I'm so sweet."
That is Belle.
Why research, and why now
When rhabdomyosarcoma comes back, the treatment options for kids like Belle have changed very little in decades. New therapies exist in labs, but moving them to children takes funding that pediatric cancer rarely gets.
The bioPROTAC Drug Development Project: our research program addresses an unmet clinical need for treatment of children with cancer while innovatively addressing the paradox of childhood cancer drug development -- that childhood cancers are too rare for venture capital or pharma investment in drug development.
As a solution, we are developing a GLP1a-like drug for adult-onset diabetes that can *also* be used to treat (and potentially cure) the childhood muscle cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma. The drug to be developed is a mRNA therapeutic, delivered in lipid nanoparticles, akin to the vaccines for COVID that was delivered to shoulder muscle.
Belle has spent her childhood being brave. She deserves more options, and so does every child who comes after her.
Every gift, at any amount, goes to this research. Please give today, and share Belle's page with one person who would want to help.
With hope and gratitude,
Sara and Mark Svoboda (parents of Belle)
Follow her journey @Team_Belle1