Bob Saget will host Cool Comedy - Hot Cuisine, the Scleroderma Research Foundation's (SRF) signature event on Monday, October 22 at Carolines on Broadway. Saget, an SRF Board Member who lost his sister to scleroderma, will be joined in the fundraising effort bycomedians Seth Herzog (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon), Seth Meyers (Saturday Night Live), John Oliver (The Daily Show)and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Presented by Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Cool Comedy - Hot Cuisine benefits the SRF, America's leading nonprofit investor in research to find improved therapies and a cure for people living with scleroderma, a disease of the connective tissues that literally means "hard skin," but often affects the internal organs with life-threatening consequences.
Symptoms and severity of scleroderma vary greatly and the course of the disease is often unpredictable. Women between the ages of 20 and 50 represent 80% of patients; however, children and men of all ages are also affected.
The "Hot Cuisine" will be provided by Bravo Top Chef Masters and restaurateurs Susan Feniger(an SRF Board Member) andMary Sue Milliken (Food Network's Too Hot Tamales) featuring dishes from Feniger's acclaimed restaurant, STREET.
"It's inspiring what can happen when passionate people work together," says Saget. "As a result of this night, researchers on the front lines for patients are changing lives."
Cool Comedy - Hot Cuisine events held in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco have raised considerable awareness for scleroderma and enabled the SRF to press forward with research aimed at helping patients live longer, fuller lives. Founded by patient Sharon Monsky in 1987, the SRF has raised more than $31,000,000 to fund research at Dartmouth, Stanford, University of California San Francisco and other universities as well as America's foremost scleroderma center at Johns Hopkins.
"The Foundation's collaborative approach is enabling scientists from leading institutions across the nation and abroad to work together and develop an understanding of how scleroderma begins, progresses and what can be done to slow, halt or reverse the disease process," explains Luke Evnin, Ph.D., SRF Board Chair and Managing Partner of MPM Capital, one of the world's largest investors in life sciences.
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