Blood cancer researchers have made tremendous progress in recent decades. In the U.S., the five-year survival rate of leukemia quadrupled since 1960 to over 60 percent, while for Hodgkin’s disease the rate has more than doubled to almost 90 percent, according to LLS. For pediatric cancer, the success rates are even higher.

But as oncologists pursue clinical trials for expensive immunotherapy and more personalized treatments, outside financing is more important than ever, especially with projected declines in federal funding.

“It takes a lot of time and patience and investigators, who can spend the time running these clinical trials and asking the really important questions,” said Mignon Loh, a pediatric oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the doctors on Krawitt’s team. “The LLS has made it possible for many researchers, including scientists and physicians, to be able to spend the time conducting research that has led to treatments that Rhett received.”

The industry is evolving at a rapid clip.

In 2017, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies, enabling doctors to use a patient’s own immune system cells to fight cancer cells. So far, the therapies, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each, have been used for patients who don’t respond to traditional chemotherapy or suffer a relapse.

The connection between Lee and Krawitt dates back five years. At the time, Krawitt was two and a half years into his treatment, during which he had endured intensive chemotherapy sessions and a long list of shots and oral medications, as well as a serious infection in his bloodstream that complicated his recovery.

Lee and Krawitt were introduced as part of an LLS fundraiser in 2013, when Krawitt was five years old. As part of the fund-raising effort, the duo filmed an interview that ran on TechCrunch and helped raise over $100,000 from VC auctions. Last week, the two cancer survivors were reunited for the first time since, this time to film a video about their progress and promote an even bolder philanthropic effort.

“Thanks to my doctors and nurses, my family and friends, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, now I’m gone with the cancer,” Krawitt says in the video.

Krawitt is used to public attention. In the years since his diagnosis, he’s testified in Washington on behalf of LLS, been in the press for his family’s effort to mandate vaccinations for school children, spoken in front of hundreds of donors at an LLS fundraiser and has been honorary skipper for the Leukemia Cup Regatta, a sailing competition.

His dad, Carl, has been right with him along the way. Carl Krawitt said that beyond the medical benefits and advances that come from LLS, the organization also provides educational and counseling services that are essential for patients and their families.

One service he highlighted was the First Connection program, where families that have been through the traumatic experience of dealing with leukemia or lymphoma provide peer support to a person or family who’s just received a shocking diagnosis and needs help and advice. Krawitt said he and his wife, Jodi, took advantage of First Connection during Rhett’s treatment and are now volunteers themselves.

“When your kid gets diagnosed with cancer, you’re like, well what do I do?” Krawitt said. “LLS was one of the organizations that was there to provide answers. And not just provide answers but actually provide you with questions that you didn’t even know you needed to ask.”