& Fund A Cure for Pancreatic Cancer, a group started by Newtown Township supervisors Chairman Rob Ciervo, donated $30,000 this month to the Pancreatic Cancer Surgical Research Fund. &

On Nov. 10, Fund A Cure's board members presented a check to the pancreatic cancer research team at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, led by Dr. Charles Yeo and Dr. Jonathan Brody.

Ciervo's nonprofit advocacy group raised the money through the third annual Run Over Cancer 5K held in Newtown Township in July. This year's donation topped the amount raised during the first two years combined. Since 2009, Fund A Cure for Pancreatic Cancer has donated a total of $55,000 to the Jefferson research team.

Ciervo's father died of pancreatic cancer in 2008. This month, the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors approved a resolution recognizing November as Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.

"While we are grateful for the wonderful work at Jefferson, we also hope that our elected leaders in Washington, D.C., realize that they must properly fund pancreatic cancer research in order for cures to be found," Ciervo said. "It is unconscionable to many of us that the National Cancer Institute, which has a nearly $5 billion budget, only allocated 2 percent of its funding towards pancreatic cancer research, when pancreatic cancer, with only a 1 percent long-term survival rate, is the deadliest cancer known to man."

Brody said that with Fund A Cure's money, the research team will work on experiments for new treatments.

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