Listen Live
KMJQ Featured Video
CLOSE

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

QUICK FACTS

  • St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® opened in 1962 and was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas. Its mission is to find cures for children with cancer and other deadly diseases through research and treatment.
  • Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.
  • St. Jude has treated children from all 50 states and from around the world.
  • St. Jude speeds discoveries directly from our labs to patients and doctors everywhere.
  • The daily operating cost for St. Jude is $1.9 million, which is primarily covered by public contributions.
  • During the past five years, 81 cents of every dollar received has supported the research and treatment at St. Jude.
  • St. Jude puts research and treatment under one roof.
  • St. Jude has developed protocols that have helped push overall survival rates for childhood cancers from less than 20 percent when the hospital opened in 1962 to 80 percent today.
  • A 15 year study conducted on 19 childhood cancers concludes that there is no significant difference in survival rates between African-American and white children treated at St Jude. When access and quality of care is equitable, so are the chances of survival.
  • St. Jude was the first institution to produce a cure for sickle cell disease with a bone marrow transplant and has one of the largest pediatric sickle cell disease programs in the country.
  • St. Jude has one of the largest sickle cell disease centers in the nation. Approximately 800 patients, from infants to teenager, are treated at the center. Five St. Jude research laboratories are dedicated to the study of sickle cell disease, making it also one of the largest sickle cell research programs in the country.
  • St. Jude freely shares the breakthroughs it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children.

For more information, please call Jasmine Boyd at (901)578-2489. (Last updated February 2014)