Musician Teams Up With Nonprofit To Raise Cancer Research Funds

MILWAUKEE COUNTY — A Milwaukee area native is using her music and platform to help fight cancer by teaming up with Music Beats Cancer, which raises funds to advance new cancer treatments.

Singer-songwriter Jules Iolyn, 30, was touched by cancer in a personal way.

Her parent’s first daughter, Katie, died from brain cancer at 8 before Iolyn was born. She also lost her aunt, whom she identified only as Jean, to brain cancer about six years ago. Iolyn has several friends who are battling cancer.

Iolyn has two older brothers, and they keep Katie's memory alive through photographs, she said. Iolyn told Patch she can't comprehend how her family was able to get past their grief. She recalled looking at Katie's photo while listening to the '90s band N Sync and crying.

Iolyn wrote stories and poetry as a young girl and started playing guitar "basically for a guy" when she turned 21, she said.

"He said, 'But you don't play an instrument.' And I said, 'Well, yes, I do,'" she said with a laugh.

Things with her crush didn't work out, but Iolyn taught herself how to play guitar anyway. Writing and guitar playing clicked together for the musician. "The guitar became the vehicle for the songwriting, and that is when my entire life changed. I was able to express myself," she said.

Music Beats Cancer

When the Madison resident shares her story, people often share theirs. Iolyn said it makes her more driven to help the cause.

"I am partnered with MBC because the only way for us to eliminate cancer is to put the effort and funding into researching new and innovative treatment methods," she said. "I think the way MBC is focusing on those underfunded innovators is incredibly important for the future of cancer research."

Iolyn hopes to shed some light on funding smaller researchers and not just big pharmaceutical companies. "We have to band together as much as possible," she said.

Iolyn met Dr. Mona S. Jhaveri, founder of Music Beats Cancer, through Reverb Nation, a portal for emerging artists.

"Mona isn't a musician herself but understood the impact music can have on everyone around them and influence them to pay attention," Iolyn said.

Jhaveri is a cancer researcher who decided to launch a startup biotech company to help "commercialize the science," she told Patch.

Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest cancers for women worldwide. In her new role as biotech entrepreneur, Jhaveri found it extremely difficult to raise funds to support her team's work.

Normally, biotech startups pitch to investors. But raising funds from investors can be extremely difficult if not impossible if your company and its technology is "early stage" and needs to "prove principle," she said. Ultimately, the company shut down due to a lack of funds.

In the biotech industry, this death of early stage funding is called "the valley of death," where great ideas go to die because they lack the critical funds to move forward. This funding bottleneck impedes progress of the war on cancer, Jhaveri said.

Music Beats Cancer was born out of her journey. It is a crowdfunding platform for biotech startups working on solutions for fighting cancer. "Our purpose is to help biotech entrepreneurs raise money from the donations of the charitable crowd to help advance their early stage cancer-fighting ideas. We align with musical artists to help us reach the crowd and raise awareness and funds," she said.

Music Beats Cancer has raised more than $27,000 toward its $100,000 goal. The coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected the group's ability to work with music festival organizers and record labels for the moment, Jhaveri said.

"As you know, there are no events being planned for this year. Therefore launching a fundraising challenge for the artists was problematic last year," she said. The organization is focusing on music festivals for 2022 and hopes to resume fundraising this year.

Using Her Voice

Iolyn uses her performances and social media to raise awareness on topics important to her. She writes about the hardships and issues she faces and knows how similar everyone is, she said. Her songs touch on such topics as the economy and inequality.

"Odds are if I'm facing this issue, other people are also facing it," she said. "Sometimes people can't articulate their thoughts until someone else does it first."

She wrote "Trickle Down" about so-called trickle-down economics, which she argued doesn't do what it purports to.

"We keep on waiting and waiting for these trickle-down economics to trickle down to the rest of us, and it only seems to trickle up," Iolyn said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has halted live shows, so the musician is using her downtime to post on social media and do virtual shows. Iolyn also networks and participates in any songwriting opportunities.

Iolyn has also become a better guitar player, working on it every day for the past year. There was not enough time to practice before. "It is opening up avenues for me to write songs in a different way," she said

To hear Jules Iolyn's music, visit her website or go to her Facebook page.