Mother's Day, 1990 - South River, NJ - Jennifer Rhatigan
brought home her newborn baby son, Jeffrey.
Mother's Day, 2026 - and Yesterday - My 36th birthday.
The first year I had to endure them without you.
Six months ago, I lost my mom, Jennifer Rhatigan, to pancreatic cancer. It was a mere 4 months from her diagnosis to our final farewell. PDAC has a five-year survival rate under 13%. Most families never even get a chance to fight it.
This campaign? This is me continuing my mom's fight.
The Life of Jennifer:
Jennifer Judith (Wyluda) Rhatigan was born in 1964 and grew up in South River, New Jersey. Small town, big family, and the makings for deep roots and strong family values.
She married my dad in 1986 and they built a family together. My sister Holly, me, and my brother Zac. The five of us against the world; thick as thieves from the very start. Something we could largely attribute to my mom for instilling nothing BUT love and support in every aspect of our lives. Honestly, you've never met a prouder mom! <3
As time went on, our family continued to grow. My siblings and I all found partners in life, and my mom?... With open arms and the warmest heart, welcomed them all into our family as if they were children of her own. The woman was the definition of "love"!
What I was already building when she got sick:
A few months prior to her diagnosis, I had been diving deep on a side-project. I was designing a new software framework that I thought could enable AI agents to accumulate knowledge over time (instead of starting fresh every conversation). Originally, it was just something new to tinker with - a curiosity to explore. I had no clue at the time, it would later evolve into a robust oncology research platform (more on that further down).
So naturally, when my mom fell ill, I immediately started to learn everything I could about pancreatic cancer. I figured: This was a fairly common disease - surely, there were copious amounts of data on it. With the incredibly powerful AI systems mid-2025, we had to be making some huge strides, right?
The more I dug, the more I realized how far we still had to go. After a series of long nights and going down yet another rabbit hole, I began seeing a new connection... that maybe this new AI framework I built... what if I steered it towards doing cancer research? Could that actually work? Sooo I promptly started teaching it how to ingest and process biomedical research, cross-reference cohort studies, and find patterns in proteomics atlases that nobody had had time to connect. The more I pushed it, the more powerful it had become - I really started to see consistent progress.
However, despite knowing deep down that her disease was progressing faster than my research, I kept at it - I believe, in a way, it became my coping mechanism. A way to feel like I was making a difference and really helping, even though this opponent seemed unbeatable. Each doctor's appointment led to more bad news, and we knew my mom didn't have long.
The disease progressed far more aggressively than any of her doctors could have predicted. Until one day, they officially made the call - there was nothing more they could do. They switched from trying to attack the tumors, to simply trying to manage her pain - and even that was a constant struggle. It was at that time I knew in my gut, I would do everything I could to continue this fight in her name.
I told my mom in her final days about the AI research project I had been working on, and my plans to see it through to the end. Her beautiful response: "Well duh.. How many times did I tell you you'd change the world some day!" The strength of this woman - completely drained and losing an uphill battle - yet never once lost her sense of humor. Not once gave up her profound optimism and dedication to making her children smile, even when faced with her own mortality.
I can't tell you how many times in those last few weeks she would say: "If it's my time, it's my time. Good things will come from this. I don't know how, but I just know it." - with 100% confidence, almost matter-of-fact. I've never heard of someone go through this fight with such bravery.
Jennifer Rhatigan passed away peacefully in her sleep on November 15, 2025, at sixty-one years old, spending the last of her days surrounded by those she loved most. The way she lived her life, just pouring her heart into her family, came back to her tenfold. Every one of us stood in unison by her side, right until the very end.
What I'm formally launching today
In my mom's honor, and to keep my word to her, I've been continuing to develop my research platform. Over the past few months, it has grown into something larger than I ever could've expected it to - large enough that I felt it time to give it a label, and an ongoing mission.
The JEN-R8 Hope Discovery Institute. As in 'generate' hope - because that's the goal really, to bring some hope to other families out there going through the journey mine went through. Plus, my mom (JEN) absolutely loved my cheesy puns and dad-jokes!
Seriously though, this system has come a long way since that original side-project, and so far has:
- Tested 14.3 million gene-drug pairs across two independent pharmacogenomic platforms
- Surfaced 10,706 cross-platform validated biomarker-drug pairs
- Helped me file 5 provisional patents covering 16 biomarker-drug pairs between pancreatic and colorectal cancers
- Validated 4 of the 5 top candidates in independent TCGA, CPTAC, and GEO patient cohorts
...and I'm just getting started.
I have real momentum on the computational side, built on over a decade of enterprise software development and AI/ML work. Where I need help is the physical side: real, wet-lab biology. That's the next milestone, and that's what this campaign funds.
The mission statement, inspired by my mom's love...
"Discoveries that could save lives should NOT be locked behind paywalls."
Every step of the way, I will be publishing as many validated findings as I can publicly. The methodology will be public. Reference code samples will be public. New panels or biomarkers discovered with the JEN-R8 Engine will be vehemently pushed forward through as much red-tape as I need to get it into the hands of families waiting for answers. That - is my promise to my mom - and my best shot at changing the world for good.
How your support could help this mission:
- Lab validation of top biomarker candidates ($5,000 to $15,000 per validation in an independent cohort)
- Compute costs to keep the engine running and expand into other diseases (between new hardware and compute, I've spent over $10,000 out of pocket already to keep this moving forward)
- Dataset access and replication studies
- Basic operations while I pursue grants and academic partnerships
Another pledge I will make publicly: EVERY dollar will be tracked publicly. I will publish a ledger on our website showing exactly where every contribution goes.
An honest note on tax-deductibility: The institute currently operates as a DBA of my software R&D company, Rhatigan AGI LLC, while I establish fiscal sponsorship for tax-deductible giving. For this reason, contributions made through this GoFundMe are not yet tax-deductible. If you need tax-deductibility for a larger gift, please reach out directly and I'll connect when fiscal sponsorship is in place.
A Final Note To My Mom:
Your belief in me, ever since I could remember, shaped my entire life. It's made me the man I am today, someone driven to succeed, and to believe in my own abilities. I will never be able to put to words how amazing of a mom you were, and how lucky I was to have been your son. Over the years, you told me time and time again that you always knew I would change the world some day. Well, mom - this is me giving it my best shot.
Love always,
Bubba
Learn more at: www.jenr8hope.com