Mount Sinai South Nassau Announces $350K Grant For Cancer Clinical Trials

OCEANSIDE, NY — Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital announced Thursday that it had received a $350,000 grant to expand its clinical cancer trial offerings, a grant that hospital officials said would advance its efforts to research and prevent cancer.

The grant came in from the Betty Ajces Trust, which hospital officials said has given Mount Sinai South Nassau over $2 million since 2023 across four grant awards.

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Mount Sinai South Nassau will continue expanding cancer clinical trials on Long Island thanks to a $350,000 donation from the Betty Ajces Trust.

"Being involved in a clinical trial can be lifesaving but also time consuming for patients, especially if they have to travel to Manhattan multiple times a week," Mount Sinai South Nassau Interim President Joshua Kugler said. "The generous support from the Ajces Fund will enable us to expand Long Island residents' access to cutting-edge cancer therapies and treatment protocols here in Oceanside."

As for the woman for whom the trust is named, Betty Ajces was born in Jackson Heights, Queens in 1929, played clarinet and toured across the country with an all-women jazz trio in the 1940s and 1950s. She served as the chair of the Rockaway-Five Towns Orchestra for years, passing in 2022 after a stroke at the age of 93.

For Alen Weiner, a trustee for the trust founded in her honor and a long time friend of Ajces and her husband, the hospital partnership is an opportunity to keep Ajces' impact going after she has passed on, giving Long Islanders with cancer the opportunity to access a wider variety of treatments.

"Mount Sinai South Nassau has proven to be a good partner and a worthy recipient of our support," Weiner said. "It is gratifying to know as a result of the leadership at Mount Sinai South Nassau's cancer program, hundreds of patients on Long Island will benefit."

On the hospital's side of things, officials said the grant would empower not just patients, but staff at Mount Sinai South Nassau's Gertrude & Louis Feil Cancer Center in Valley Stream.

"We share the Ajces Trust's vision to give patients hope while expanding access to a comprehensive continuum of cancer care," surgery department chair and medical director at the cancer center Rajiv Datta said."When hope is combined with compassionate, expert physicians and access to medical innovations and advancements, the result empowers patients and our staff to continue to provide potentially life-saving work.