When I began my career in cancer research in 1989, CRI was the only organization that believed in supporting junior researchers as the future of cancer immunotherapy. I had just had my NIH grant turned down and CRI gave me an investigators grant that allowed me to launch my career. They then funded a number of postdoctoral fellows, who are now themselves independent cancer immunology leaders at institutions all over the world. Without CRI, I would not be doing this today. Starting in 2010, cancer immunotherapy has emerged as the "new" breakthrough approach to cancer therapy but this is actually the fruit of decades of labor and CRI has been steadfastly behind that research from the beginning.