Goldman Philanthropic Partnerships (GPP) was started with an eye toward supporting high-risk, high-reward research projects. George and Judy Goldman began the organization with $5 million of their own money after Judy survived a rare and potentially deadly blood plasma cancer called multiple myeloma. When she was diagnosed in 1990, little was known about this disease, which strikes 14,000 mostly elderly Americans each year.

Told she had less than five years to live, the Goldman's sold their successful real-estate business and took cruises to exotic locales between chemotherapy treatments at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. "If I was going to die, I worked hard to earn this money, wasn't going to let his next wife get it," said Judy.

Mrs. Goldman went into remission after several years and the couple unpacked their bags and created GPP to accelerate myeloma research. Their first project was a 1999 collaboration with the Mayo Clinic using thalidomide, a sleeping pill banned 40 years ago for causing birth defects, to slow myeloma by reducing blood supply to cancer cells. Thalidomide has since supplanted chemotherapy as the preferred initial treatment. The results turned an unknown researcher, Dr. Vincent Rajkumar into a rising medical star. Dr. Rajkumar credits the Goldman's for helping bring attention and support to his work. These days Dr. Rajkumar's work is regarded highly enough that he receives grants from the National Institutes of Health, the federal government's medical research funding arm.

According to GuideStar, the company that maintains a national database of non-profits, there are only about 200 charitable organizations funding medical research in the Chicago area. Researchers with brilliant but unconventional ideas for treating diseases are in need of money for their research. George and Judy Goldman saw the need and established Goldman Philanthropic Partnerships, and now Partnership for Cures, to help fill that need.