I'm riding in the Courage Classic for Cooper and many other amazing kids. Help us crush childhood cancer!
Climb for Coop
Riding Against Childhood Cancer
Welcome to Climb for Coop, a North Denver team in its eighth year of riding to honor Cooper Deming and to raise funds to crush childhood cancer.
Cooper was 12 years old when he died on May 9, 2017. He had an incurable brain tumor known as DIPG — Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. DIPG is rare, always deadly, and has seen virtually zero progress since the 1950s. He never gave up. Neither do we.
This year, every dollar raised by Climb for Coop goes directly to DIPG research at Children's Hospital Colorado, and a generous private donor will match every dollar raised, establishing the new Cooper Deming DIPG Research Fund. Your support does twice the work.
For decades, radiation therapy was the only available treatment for DIPG, offering temporary relief but no path to long-term survival. Surgical removal has never been feasible given the tumor’s location.
Thankfully, that picture is changing. The science has never been more ready. Technology now exists to target DIPG with personalized, precision treatments that simply weren't possible before.
Research Underway at Children's Colorado
Multiple Treatment Clinical Trial: A first-of-its-kind clinical trial expected to open later this year will integrate multiple treatments — radiation, locally delivered chemotherapy, targeted chemotherapy, and immunotherapy — into a single coordinated plan, attacking the tumor on multiple fronts simultaneously.
CAR T-Cell Therapy: Researchers developed an antibody called 10D1 that attaches to a protein called CD99 found on DIPG tumor cells. Combined with radiation in mouse models, it stops tumor growth — effectively curing DIPG. Building on that discovery, the team is now developing a CAR T-cell therapy that targets the same CD99 protein, engineering a patient's own immune cells to seek out and destroy tumor cells. A clinical trial is in development.
This is the most exciting moment in DIPG research ever. There has never been a better time to join us. Ride with us! Donate!
